TOPICS 


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EVERY-DAY  TOPICS 


BOOK    OF    BRIEFS 


BY 

J.    G.    HOLLAND 


EIGHTH    THOUSAND. 


NEW    YORK 

SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG   AND    COMPANY 
1876. 


COPYRIGHT,  1876,  BY 
SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG  &  CO, 


B.  Hermon  Smith,  Stereotyper,  JOHN  F.  TROW  &  SON,  PRINTERS, 

The  University  Press,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.  205-413  EAST  IZTH  ST.,  NEW  YORK. 


PREFACE. 

A  good  many  years  ago,  the  author  wrote  and  pub- 
lished a  series  of  familiarly  didactic  books  which  won  a 
wide  reading  and  which  are  still  so  kindly  regarded  by 
the  public  that  they  maintain  for  themselves  a  constant 
sale.  Many  of  the  articles  published  during  the  last 
five  years  under  the  general  head  of  "  Topics  of  the 
Time"  in  ScRIBNER's  MONTHLY,  of  which  he  is  the 
editor,  have  been  recognized  by  the  publishers  of  these 
books  as  cognate  with  them  in  subjects  and  mode  of 
treatment,  and  they  have  invited  him  to  select  from  the 
large  accumulation  those  which  seem  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  every  time,  and  prepare  them  for  publication 
as  a  companion  volume.  This  work  he  has  undertaken 
carefully  to  do,  and  the  result  is  the  book  herewith  pre- 
sented. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  opportunity  in  an  editorial  to 
treat  any  topic  exhaustively,  but  a  group  of  brief  pa- 
pers, upon  any  general  subject,  may  be  relied  upon  to 
present  many  of  its  more  obvious  and  practically  im- 
portant phases.  As  these  papers,  however,  were  writ- 
ten without  reference  to  each  other,  or  to  their  collec- 


iv  PREFACE. 

tion  and  presentation  in  a  volume,  their  division  intc 
groups  has  not  been  effected  without  some  degree  of 
arbitrariness ;  but  it  is  believed  that  the  direct  or  indi- 
rect relations  of  the  constituents  of  each  group  to  its 
general  topic  will  be  readily  recognized,  and  that  the 
classification  will  be  helpful  in  many  ways. 

The  principal  difficulty  which  the  Author  has  encount- 
ered has  grown  out  of  the  attempt  to  avoid  repetitions 
which,  through  forgetfulness  and  inadvertence,  have 
found  their  way  into  articles  so  widely  separated  in  the 
dates  of  their  production.  The  most  of  these  he  has 
been  able  to  suppress,  but  he  has  been  compelled  to  re- 
tain some  of  them  because  of  their  important  relations 
to  the  context. 

With  this  explanation,  these  papers,  already  familiar 
to  many  thousands  of  readers,  are  submitted  to  the 
public,  by  its  grateful  friend, 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS. 

CULTURE. 

The  Favuts  of  Culture,        ......  i 

Sectarian  Culture  and  What  Comes  of  It,                     «            •  4 

Popular  Arts,           ......            -  8 

The  Art  of  Speaking  and  Writing,        •            .            -            .  1 1 

LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 

The  Literary  Class,              ......  16 

Habits  of  Literary  Labor,          .....  19 

Literary  Style,         .......23 

Nature  and  Literature,  ......  27 

The  Rewards  of  Literary  Labor,    .....  30 

Professional  and  Literary  Incomes,       ....  34 

Literary  Hinderances,          .......  38 

The  Reading  of  Periodicals,      .....  41 

The  Morals  of  Journalism,              .....  45 

Lord  Lytton,      .......  48 

The  Difficulty  with  Dickens,  •  •  -  -  .51 

CRITICISM. 

A  Heresy  of  Art,           ......  55 

Criticism  as  a  Fine  Art,       ......  59 

The  Indecencies  of  Criticism,    .....  62 

Conscience  and  Courtesy  in  Criticism,        ....  69 

THE  POPULAR  LECTURE 

Star  Lecturing,  .......  73 

Triflers  on  the  Platform,     ......  77 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PERSONAL  DANGERS. 

Moths  in  the  Candle,     -            •            •            •            •            •  8l 

The  Young  in  Great  Cities,              •            •            •            •            •  85 

The  Good  Fellow,                      .....  87 

Easy  Lessons  from  Hard  Lives,     .'••••  90 

Prizes  for  Suicide,          ......  93 

Keeping  at  It,  -  •  •  •  •  .96 

PERSONAL  DEVELOPMENT. 

The  American  Gentleman  of  Leisure,  ....  100 

The  Improved  American,    ......  103 

Room  at  the  Top,          ......  106 

The  Next  Duty,      .......  no 

PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 

The  Power  of  the  Affirmative,  -            •           -            -           •  113 
Modern  Preaching,               -            -            -            «            •            -115 

Fewer  Sermons  and  More  Service,       «           -           -           •  119 

The  Dragon  of  the  Pews,   ......  124 

Shepherds  and  Their  Flocks,     -            -            •            -            •  127 

The  Relations  of  Clergymen  to  Women,     •           «           .  130 

A  New  Departure,        -           -            •            •            .           •  133 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE. 

Mr.  TyndalPs  Address,       -«....  137 

Science  and  Christianity,            .....  141 

By  Their  Fruits,      .......  145 

Prayers  and  Pills,           ......  148 

REVIVALS  AND  REFORMS. 

The  Philosophy  of  Reform,            .....  153 

Mr.  Moody  and  His  Work,       .....  156 

Revivals  and  Evangelists,  •••...  160 

CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE. 

The  Average  Prayer-meeting,  -            -            •            •           •  164 


CONTENTS.  vii 

Speaking  Disrespectfully  of  the  Equator,  -            -            -           -  1 68 

Christianity  and  Color,  -            •            •            •            •            •  17° 
Sunday  in  Great  Cities,       -            -            •            •            •            -i?4 

American  Sunday  Schools,         -            -            -            -            -  177 

Shakerism,  .            -            -            «            -            -            -            -  l8l 

THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

The  Out-look, 185 

A  Time  to  Speak— A  Time  to  Keep  Silence,          ...  189 

Why  Not? I92 

How  Much  Has  Been  Gained  ?      -            -            -            •           -  196 

Church  Debts, *99 

Temporal  and  Spiritual,       ..-•••  203 

Organs,  --•---•-  206 

The  Free  Church  Problem,              .....  210 

Cheap  Opinions,             ......  213 

THE  COMMON  MORALITIES. 

The  Popular  Capacity  for  Scandal,              ....  218 

Professional  Morals,       •                                      ...  221 

Let  us  be  Virtuous,                          .....  224 

American  Honesty,        ......  227 

WOMAN. 

Ownership  in  Women,        ...•••  231 

Three  Pieces  of  the  Woman  Question,              ...  234 

Women  in  the  Colleges,      --.••-  237 

The  Moral  Power  of  Woman,                                          •  24° 

Provision  for  Wives  and  Children,              -            -            •'••'."  245 

WOMAN  AND  HOME. 

The  New  York  Woman 249 

Dressing  the  Girls,  ...---•  2S2 

Home  and  its  Queen,    ----••  2S4 

AMUSEMENTS. 

Theatres  and  Theatre-Going,          -           -           -           -  258 


viii  CONTENTS. 

The  Struggle  for  Wealth,           .....  262 

Summer  Play,           .......  266 

Novel-Reading,              ......  269 

Winter  Amusements,  •  •  •  •  •  .272 

A  Word  for  our  Wanderers,      .....  276 

THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION. 

The  Liquor  Interest,  -  -  -  -  -  .281 

The  Delusions  of  Drink,           .....  285 

The  Wine  Question  in  Society,       .....  289 

The  Way  we  Waste,      ......  292 

The  Temperance  Question  and  the  Press,              ...  296 

Rum  and  Railroads,       -            -            -            •            -            -  301 

Women  and  Wine,  .......  303 

Mitigating  Circumstances,          .....  306 

Double  Crimes  and  One-sided  Laws,         ....  309 

SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE. 

Good  Manners,                          -            -            -           -            -  314 

Social  Usages,         -  -  -  -  -  •  -317 

Social  Taxes,     .......  320 

The  Tortures  of  the  Dinner  Table,            ....  323 

TOWN  AND  COUNTRY. 

The  Loneliness  of  Farming-life  in  America,     ...  326 

The  Over-crowded  Cities,  ......  329 

THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR. 

Employers  and  Employed,         .....  333 

The  Neglect  of  the  Rich,    -            -            -  337 

Strike,  but  Hear,           -                        ....  340 

Something  that  Wealth  can  do  for  Labor,  ....  343 

POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  MEN. 

The  Gentleman  in  Politics,         .....  348 

The  Bane  of  the  Republic,              .....  352 

Our  President,  .......  356 


CONTENTS.  IX 

AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 

The  Old  Types,      -                                                 .                        .  359 

The  Sins  of  American  Good  Nature,     ....  362 

Esthetics  at  a  Premium,     -                         ....  365 

The  Conservative  Resources  of  American  Life,            «           •  369 

Living  with  Windows  Open,           .....  372 

The  Cure  for  Gossip,     ......  375 

American  Incivility,             ......  378 

Where  are  the  Young  Men  ?                  -            •            •            -  382 

The  American  Restaurant,                                      «            ...  385 

The  Common  Schools,                          ....  388 


EVERY  DAY  TOPICS. 


CULTURE. 
THE  FAULTS  OF  CULTURE. 

Is  it  heresy  to  say  that  no  pursuit  can  be  more  selfish  than 
that  of  culture  for  its  own  sake?  If  there  be  forgiveness  for 
such  a  sin,  either  in  this  world  or  the  world  to  come,  let  us 
commit  it,  and  so  have  the  pleasure  of  uttering  a  very  earnest 
conviction.  Any  competent  observer  cannot  fail  to  have  no- 
ticed that  the  seeking  of  that  which  is  most  admirable  in  intel- 
lectual finish  and  furniture,  simply  for  the  sake  of  holding  it  in 
possession,  has  the  same  degrading  effect  upon  the  soul  that 
comes  to  the  miser  from  hoarding  his  gold.  "The  greatest, 
wisest,  meanest  of  mankind"  was  a  typical  devotee  of  selfish 
culture ;  and  it  is  safe  to  declare  that  all  men  and  women  who 
pursue  culture  as  an  end,  failing  to  devote  it  to  any  purpose 
involving  self-surrender,  are  mean  in  their  degree.  So  it  often 
happens  that  as  men  grow  more  learned  by  study,  and  more 
skilled  in  intellectual  practice,  and  more  nicely  adjusted  and 
finished  in  their  power,  and  more  delicate  and  exact  in  their 
tastes,  do  they  lose  their  sympathy  with  the  world  of  com- 
mon life,  and  become  fastidious,  disdainful  and  cold.  They 

seem   able  to  warm  only  toward  those  who  praise  them  or 

§ 


2  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

who  set  an  extravagant  value  upon  their  possessions,  and  to 
hold  fellowship  with  none  but  those  of  kindred  pursuits. 

It  is  often  noticed,  with  surprise  and  regret,  that  as  culture 
comes  in,  faith  goes  out.  The  fact  seems  strange  to  those  who 
think  that  faith,  if  it  is  a  rational  thing  in  itself,  should  grow 
vigorous  and  far-reaching  with  the  rising  power  and  deepen- 
ing delicacy  of  the  mind.  "  Is  it  only  the  ignorant  who  have 
faith?"  they  ask;  "and  must  man  surrender  this  divinest  of 
all  possessions  when  culture  enters  ?  "  Ay,  he  must,  if  culture 
is  pursued  as  an  end  in  itself.  Culture  thoroughly  Christianized 
— culture  pursued  for  ends  of  benevolence — strengthens  faith ; 
but  culture  that  ends  in  itself  and  its  possessor  is  infidel  in 
every  tendency.  The  culture  which  is  pursued  for  its  own  sake 
makes  a  god  of  .self,  and  so  turns  away  the  soul  from  its  rela- 
tions— earthly  and  heavenly — that  self  becomes  the  one  great 
fact  of  the  universe.  A  culture  which  does  not  serve  God  by 
direct  purp_pse,  and_with  loving  and  reverent  devotion,  is  the 
purest  type  of  practical  infidelity ;  and  there  are  notable  indi- 
vidual instances,  even  in  so  young  a  civilization  as  ours,  in 
which  constantly  ripening  culture  has  been  a  constantly  de- 
scending path  into  Paganism.  We  fear  that  any  thoughtful 
American,  undertaking  to  name  those  in  his  own  country  who 
have  carried  intellectual  culture  to  the  highest  point,  would  be 
obliged  to  indicate  men  and  women  to  whom  Christianity  has 
no  high  meaning,  and  by  whom  it  wins  no  victories. 

When  culture  is  selfish,  all  its  sympathies  are  clannish.  There 
is  nothing  outside  of  its  circle  to  be  either  admired  or  tolerated. 
Such  culture  can  have  no  broad  aims,  except  the  selfish  aim 
to  be  broadly  recognized.  Whatever  work  it  does  is  done  for 
the  few.  To  contribute  by  kind  and  self-adaptive  purpose  to 
the  wants  of  the  many  is  what  it  never  does.  It  is_too_pjoud 
ttp_be_useful.  It  would  be  glad  to  command  or  to  lead,  but  it 


CULTURE.  3 

will  not  serve.     It  works  away  at  its  own  refinement  and  ag- 
grandizement, but  refuses  to  come  down  into  the  dusty  ways 
of  life,  to  point  men  upwards  and  to  help  them  bear  their 
burdens.     The  world  all  might  go  to  the  dogs  or  the  devil  for 
anything  that  selfish  culture  would  do  to  prevent  it.     That*""' 
work  is  done,  and  must  always  be  done,  by  those  who  have  i 
faith — by  the  humble  who  have  something  better  than  culture,  ' 
or  the  high  who  have  placed  their  culture  under  the  control  of   . 
that  law  of  love  whose  feet  stand  upon  the  earth,  and  whose . 
hands  grasp  The  Throne. 

The  farmer,  in  recommending  an  animal  to  a  purchaser, 
talks  of  flesh  that  is  "worked  on,"  in  contradistinction  to  that 
which  is  acquired  while  standing  still  and  feeding.  The  one 
acquisition  is  recognized  as  possessing  qualities  of  power  and 
endurance  which  the  other  does  not.  It  is  precisely  so  with 
culture.  That  which  is  "  worked  on  " — that  which  comes  while 
its  possessor  is  busy  in  ministry — is  as  beautiful  as  it  is  valuable. 
This,  indeed,  is  the  only  culture  that  comes  to  a  man  as  a  legiti- 
mate, healthful  and  valuable  possession.  The  florist  can  show 
us  flowers  whose  beauty  has  been  won  by  culture,  but  it  has 
been  won  at  the  fatal  cost  of  their  fragrance.  There  may  be 
much  in  even  a  selfish  culture  to  admire,  but  if  there  is  noth- 
ing to  inhale,  our  hearts  are  still  hungry.  We  are  obliged  to 
go  near  to  see  that  which  should  come  to  us  on  all  the  wings 
of  the  air. 

There  is  a  sort  of  blind  worship  of  culture  among  the  peo- 
ple, which  would  not  be  worship  were  it  not  blind.  If  they 
could  comprehend  its  narrowness  of  sympathy  and  its  selfish- 
ness of  purpose;  if  they  could  see  and  measure  its  greed  for 
praise,  and  its  contempt  for  them  and  their  acquisitions  and 
pursuits ;  if  they  could  feel  its  arrogance  and  pride,  its  charms 
would  all  disappear.  If  they  could  see  how,  in  their  earnest 


,  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

coveting  of  the  best  gifts,  those  who  possess  them  had  utterly 
forgotten  the  "more  excellent  way,"  they  would  shrink  from 
them  in  terror  or  in  pity.  It  is  sad  to  think  that  from  the 
most  notable  school  of  personal  culture  in  the  country  faith 
long  since  departed,  with  limping  wings,  while  devotion  to  the 
work  of  making  the  world  better  went  out  with  faith.  Men 
who  ministered  at  the  altar  have  forsaken  it ;  and  men  who 
broke  bread  to  the  multitude  refuse  to  taste  it  themselves,  even 
when  it  is  presented  to  them  in  the  name  of  Humanity's 
Highest  and  Divinity's  Best.  God  save  us  all  from  the  influ- 
ence of  such  a  culture  as  this,  and  help  us  to  be  grateful  that 
it  has  seen  its  best  or  its  worst  days,  and  is  dying  at  its  root ! 
Christianity  must  kill  it  or  Christianity  must  die.  It  must  kill 
Christianity  or  it  must  die.  The  event  is  not  doubtful. 

A  culture  that  is  in  itself  a  mistake  cannot  by  any  possibility 
become  a  bar  of  sound  judgment  on  any  subject.  It  is  not 
safe  to  trust  it  in  any  question  of  religion,  or  morals,  or  society : 
much  less  in  any  question  of  art  or  literature.  Its  own  produc- 
tions the  people  have  always  declined  to  receive  as  useful  to 
them  in  any  degree,  for  they  have  no  relation  to  their  wants. 

SECTARIAN  CULTURE  AND  WHAT  COMES  OF  IT. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  that  culture  which  accompanies 
devotion  to  sectarian  systems  and  ideas  is  not  admirable.  It  is 
equally  beyond  dispute  that  the  style  of  personal  character 
which  accompanies  such  culture  is  not  lovable.  The  limit  of 
sympathy  is  alike  the  limit  of  culture  and  of  lovableness.  It  is 
a  matter  of  surprise  that  men  whose  Christian  honesty,  purity, 
and  self-devotedness  are  conceded  on  every  hand,  are  often 
men  with  whom  we  do  not  like  to  associate — men  to  whom 
we  do  not  find  ourselves  attracted — men  with  whom  we  have 
little  that  is  common.  There  are  clergymen  of  great  power 


CULTURE.  5 

and  influence  in  their  own  denomination  who  are  so  entirely 
out  of  place  in  general  society  that  they  never  appear  in  it. 
Their  whole  life  runs  in  a  sectarian  rut,  and  tends  toward,  and 
ends  at,  a  sectarian  goal.  There  are  great  multitudes  of  laymen 
of  the  same  sort,  who  have  no  associations  outside  of  their  own 
church.  Hugging  the  thought  that  they  monopolize  the  truth, 
they  can  regard  no  other  sect  with  hearty  toleration  and  re- 
spect. Their  sympathies  are  shortened  in  every  direction,  and 
their  culture  fails  to  be  admirable,  because  it  is  based  on  one- 
sided views  of  truth,  and  limited  by  the  prescribed  tenets  of 
their  faith.  It  is  not  an  answer  to  this  statement  to  say  that 
true  Christianity  is  never  popular,  and  that  even  its  Founder 
was  not  popular.  It  was  the  narrow  sects  that  hated  Him. 
It  was  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  whom  He  denounced  who 
despised  Him.  The  common  people  heard  Him  gladly,  and 
followed  Him,  and  received  His  society  and  ministry  by  thou- 
sands. 

It  is  also  not  to  be  denied  that  there  are  styles  of  character 
and  culture  only  indirectly  formed  by  Christian  ideas,  or  influ- 
enced by  them,  that  are  extremely  lovable.  There  are  men 
and  women  who  have  had  no  conscious  Christian  experience, 
whose  faith  is  either  a  negative  or  a  most  indefinite  quantity, 
who  make  no  public  profession  of  piety,  who  do  not  even  pri- 
vately count  themselves  among  Christians  in  name,  yet  who 
are  nevertheless  among  the  most  amiable  that  we  know.  Their 
courtesy,  their  benevolence,  their  thorough  integrity  of  char- 
acter, their  hearty  good-will  manifested  in  all  society,  their 
toleration  and  charity,  make  them  universal  favorites.  They 
ignore  all  sects  and  all  religious  and  political  differences,  and 
sometimes  become  social  centres  for  the  church  itself.  Many 
Christians  prefer  them  for  companions  to  those  who  are  enrolled 
with  them  on  church-registers,  and  are  puzzled  to  know  why  il 


6  EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

is  that  they  love  them  more  than  they  do  those  who  are  nom- 
inally their  brethren. 

The  most  lovable  men  and  women  we  know  are  under  the 
control  of  one  of  two  motives,  viz:  the  sympathy  of  humanity, 
or  the  sympathy  of  Christianity.  Both  are  alike  universal 
in  their  bearing  and  reach,  and  both  produce  the  finest  results 
on  human  character  that  are  possible  to  be  achieved.  Those 
who  are  under  the  control  of  the  sympathy  of  humanity  know 
no  sect,  and  they  only  become  unlovely  when  they  single  out 
some  class  of  men  as  the  recipients  of  their  good-will  and  their 
good  offices.  The  humanitarian  who  delivers  himself  to  one 
idea,  and  concentrates  his  sympathies  and  his  charities  upon  a 
single  class,  not  only  injures  his  own  character  but  his  lovable- 
ness  and  popularity.  Precisely  as  when  one  concentrates  his 
sympathies  and  labors  upon  a  sect,  does  he  cease  to  draw  the 
hearts  of  all  men  to  him.  No  matter  what  faith  we  receive  into 
our  heads,  our  hearts  will  love  the  man  who  loves  all  men, 
whether  he  loves  them  as  a  man  or  a  Christian ;  and  our  hearts 
are  right.  The  man  who  knows  no  limit  to  his  human  sympa- 
thy, and  the  Christian  who  knows  no  limit  to  his  Christian  sym- 
pathy, are  those  who  hold  the  hearts  of  the  world,  and  who, 
in  that  sympathy,  possess  the  only  solid  basis  for  a  broad  and 
catholic  culture. 

The  Christian  ought  to  be  the  better  and  the  broader  man. 
The  Christian  of  genuinely  catholic  sympathies  is  the  better  and 
broader  man;  but,  alas  !  a  Christian  of  this  type  is  exceedingly 
rare.  The  whole  culture  of  the  Christian  church  is  sectarian, 
and  only  here  and  there  do  men  break  through  the  walls  that 
have  been  built  around  them,  into  that  large  liberty  of  sympa- 
thy and  thought  which  is  every  Christian's  birthright.  We 
fail  everywhere  to  recognize  in  our  sympathies  those  whom  the 
Master  recognizes ;  for  the  Master's  love  is  simply  the  love  of 


CULTURE.  7 

humanity,  based  on  a  broader  knowledge  of  its  nature,  its  pos- 
sibilities, and  its  destiny.  The  sympathy  of  humanity  is  wholly 
good  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  falls  short  of  Christianity  in  that 
it  fails  to  recognize  the  immortal  in  the  mortal. 

We  are  led  to  this  exposition  by  the  contemplation  of  a  no- 
torious fact  in  the  literary  history  of  the  time.  It  is  a  subject 
of  sorrow  among  the  churches  of  the  country  that  the  higher 
literature  of  the  day  is  very  largely  the  product  of  men  and 
women  who  have  little  Christian  faith,  or  none  at  all.  Did  it 
ever  occur  to  these  churches,  or  the  preachers  who  represent 
them,  to  ask  why  this  is  the  case  ?  Why  is  it  that  these  men  and 
women  have  the  culture  that  makes  their  productions  accept- 
able to  the  world  ?  Why  is  it  that  they,  without  any  organ- 
ized schools  to  help  them,  or  organized  bodies  to  patronize 
them,  produce  that  which  is  read  by  all  schools  and  all  "bodies, 
and  are  the  grudgingly  acknowledged  leaders  in  literary  art? 
There  is  some  sufficient  reason  for  this,  and  it  is  not  a  reason 
that  redounds  to  the  credit  of  the  type  of  Christianity  which 
prevails.  It  is  time  to  look  this  matter  squarely  and  candidly 
in  the  face.  These  men  and  women  are  not  base  usurpers  of  a 
sway  which  by  any  fairly-achieved  right  belongs  to  others.  They 
rule  because  they  have  the  power  to  rule.  They  prevail  because 
of  excellence.  The  public  are  not  deceived  by  them,  nor  is 
their  pre-eminence  the  result  of  accident.  Either  their  sympa- 
thy of  humanity  is  better,  as  a  basis  of  culture  and  an  inspirer 
of  thought,  than  the  sympathy  of  Christianity,  or  the  sympathy 
of  Christianity — pure  and  large  and  catholic — does  not  prevail 
among  the  churches.  Something  is  wrong  somewhere;  and  we 
can  find  that  something  nowhere  but  in  the  narrowing  and 
dwarfing  influence  of  sectarian  culture. 

The  sympathy  of  humanity  was  strong  in  Shakespeare,  and 
it  was  given  to  him  to  weave  at  once  his  own  crown  and  that 


8  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

of  the  language  in  which  he  wrote.  It  was  strong  in  Dickens, 
and  the  whole  Christian  world  turned  away  from  its  own  fount- 
ains to  drink  at  that  which  his  magic  pen  uncovered.  It  is 
strong  in  the  hundred  men  and  women  whose  brains  and  hands 
provide  the  books  which  the  world  is  reading  to-day.  Is  there 
no  higher  source  of  inspiration  ?  We  believe  there  is,  and  that 
it  is  that  sympathy  of  Christianity  which  not  only  ignores  but 
despises  and  hates  all  sectarian  bonds  and  bounds.  The 
Christian  who  does  not  embrace  all  mankind  in  his  Christian 
regard,  with  the  largest  toleration  and  good- will,  and  who  does 
not  refuse  to  become  the  slave  of  a  system  and  the  creature  of 
a  creed,  can  never  produce  a  literature  which  the  world  will 
read.  It  has  been  tried  in  books,  in  magazines,  in  newspapers, 
and  on  the  platform,  and  it  has  always  failed.  We  must  have 
a  broader  church  before  we  get  a  better  literature,  and  before 
the  present  literary  powers  will  be  deposed  from  their  sway. 

POPULAR  ARTS. 

There  are  certain  arts  in  high  repute  among  the  people  which 
are  so  inefficiently  taught,  and  so  imperfectly  acquired,  as  to 
call  for  some  stimulating  and  suggestive  questioning.  The 
amount  of  money  expended  upon  the  teaching  of  music  to  the 
young  in  this  country  is  enormous ;  and  what  are  the  results  ? 
In  every  ladies'  school,  among  our  forty  millions  of  people, 
the  piano  is  sounding  from  morning  until  night.  In  all  the 
cities  and  large  towns,  industrious  gentlemen,  each  with  a  port- 
folio under  his  arm,  go  from  house  to  house,  giving  instruction 
upon  this  popular  instrument,  and  in  forty-nine  cases  out  of 
every  fifty,  their  pupils  stop  exactly  where  they  leave  them.  In 
how  many  families  in  this  great  city  of  New  York  can  a  girl  be 
found  who  is  capable  of  going  on  with  her  practice  alone,  and 
perfecting  herself  in  an  art,  the  rudiments  and  principles  of 


CULTURE.  g 

which  she  has  acquired  ?  Very  few,  we  answer.  We  do  not 
know  of  one.  The  universal  testimony  is,  that  the  moment 
instruction  ceases,  progress  ceases.  Under  the  tuition  of  her 
teacher,  the  universal  American  girl  learns  her  dozen  pieces 
so  as  to  play  them  fairly,  and  never  goes  beyond  them.  These 
she  plays  until  they  are  worn  out  to  her  own  ear,  and  the  ears 
of  her  friends;  gradually  she  loses  her  power  to  play  these 
well ;  and  then  she  drops  the  piano  altogether,  especially  if  she 
is  married.  The  money  paid  for  her  accomplishment,  and  the 
precious  time  she  has  expended  upon  it,  are  a  dead  loss. 

The  lessons  in  drawing,  given  in  the  same  way,  are,  as  a  rule, 
as  poor  in  results  as  those  given  in  music.  A  set  of  pictures, 
of  various  degrees  of  badness,  are  manufactured  and  framed, 
and  that  is  the  end  of  it,  unless  the  bolstering  and  spurring  of 
a  teacher  are  called  in  to  keep  the  pupil  to  her  work ;  but, 
beyond  the  eye  of  a  teacher,  the  work  rarely  goes.  The  aver- 
age American  girl  not  only  has  no  impulse  to  perfect  herself  in 
the  ornamental  arts  to  which  she  has  devoted  so  much  time, 
but  she  considers  it  a  hardship  to  be  required  to  take  a  single 
step  without  assistance.  She  is  just  as  dependent  on  a  teacher, 
when  she  ought  to  be  able  to  stand  and  walk  alone,  as  she  is 
when  she  begins  with  him. 

Now  we  doubt  whether  this  state  of  things  is  owing  to 
something  radically  wrong  in  the  girl.  She  has  her  responsi- 
bility in  the  matter,  without  question,  but  it  seems  to  us  that 
there  must  be  something  radically  wrong  in  the  teaching.  A 
method  of  teaching  which  universally  produces  the  result  of 
dependence  upon  the  teacher,  stands  self-condemned.  What 
would  be  thought  of  a  teacher  of  mathematics  who,  under 
fair  conditions,  could  not  teach  his  pupils  to  reason  for  them- 
selves ?  What  of  a  teacher  of  the  natural  sciences  who  should 
uniformly  leave  his  pupils  incapable  of  an  independent  investi- 


x  0  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

gation  in  geology,  or  chemistry,  or  botany  ?  Yet  here  are  two 
great  classes  of  teachers  who  uniformly  leave  the  young  sub- 
mitted to  their  tuition,  not  only  practically  helpless,  but  with- 
out the  first  impulse  to  go  on  without  help.  We  know  nothing 
of  their  business,  but  we  know  enough,  from  the  results  of  it, 
to  know  that  they  are  as  ignorant  as  we  are  of  certain  very 
essential  departments  of  it.  We  know,  also,  that  if  they  can- 
not produce  better  results,  the  quicker  they  are  out  of  the  way 
the  better. 

In  the  entire  conglomerate  educational  system  of  America 
there  is  no  department  in  which  so  much  time  and  money  are 
absolutely  thrown  away  as  in  what  are  called  the  ornamental 
arts.  The  teachers  in  this  department  fail  entirely  to  compre- 
hend the  end  toward  which  every  lesson  they  give  should 
drive.  It  is  not  for  us  to  point  out  the  remedies  for  their  im- 
perfections, but,  in  the  name  of  a  suffering  and  disappointed 
people,  to  call  their  attention  to  those  imperfections,  and  to 
demand  that  they  shall  either  be  remedied,  or  the  costly  farce 
be  withdrawn  from  the  boards. 

Oratory  is  one  of  the  most  popular  arts  in  America.  The 
man  who  can  speak  well  is  always  popular;  and  the  orator 
holds  the  hearts  of  the  people  in  his  hand.  Yet,  what  multi- 
tudes of  young  men  are  poured  out  upon  the  country,  year 
after  year,  to  get  their  living  by  public  speech,  who  cannot 
even  read  well !  When  a  minister  goes  before  an  audience,  it 
is  reasonable  to  ask,  and  to  expect,  that  he  shall  be  accom- 
plished in  the  arts  of  expression — that  he  shall  be  a  good 
writer,  and  a  good  speaker.  It  makes  little  difference  that  he 
knows  more  than  his  audience — is  better  than  his  audience — 
has  the  true  matter  in  him — if  the  art  by  which  he  conveys 
his  thought  is  shabby.  It  ought  not  to  be  shabby,  because  it 
is  not  necessary  that  it  should  be.  There  are  plenty  of  mer» 


CULTURE.  IX 

who  can  train  the  voice.  There  are  plenty  of  men  who  can 
so  develop  it,  and  so  instruct  in  the  arts  of  oratory,  that  no 
man  needs  to  go  into  the  pulpit  unaccompanied  by  the  powei 
to  impress  upon  the  people  all  of  wisdom  that  he  carries. 
The  art  of  public  speech  has  been  shamefully  neglected  in 
all  our  higher  training-schools.  It  has  been  held  subordinate 
to  everything  else,  when  it  is  of  prime  importance. 

We  believe  that  more  attention  is  now  paid  to  this  matter 
than  formerly.  The  colleges  are  training  their  students  better, 
and  there  is  no  danger  that  too  much  attention  will  be  devoted 
to  it.  The  only  danger  is,  that  the  great  majority  will  learn 
too  late  that  the  art  of  oratory  demands  as  much  study  and 
practice  as  any  other  of  the  higher  arts,  and  that  without  it 
they  must  flounder  along  through  life  practically  shorn  of  half 
the  power  that  is  in  them,  and  shut  out  from  a  large  success. 

THE  ART  OF  SPEAKING  AND  WRITING. 

A  musician  is  not  accounted  an  artist  who,  although  thor- 
oughly versed  in  the  science  of  music,  knows  nothing  practi- 
cally of  the  art.  It  matters  very  little  to  the  listening  world 
how  much  he  knows,  if  he  can  neither  play  nor  sing.  A  man 
may  talk  or  write  very  intelligently  of  picture  and  sculpture 
without  the  slightest  practical  skill  in  either  branch  of  perform- 
ance. So  there  are  multitudes  of  men  with  well-stored  minds, 
who  live  without  access  to  the  public,  simply  because  they  are 
not  accomplished  in  the  arts  of  expression  by  pen  and  tongue. 
These  men  have  been  trained  for  public  life.  They  have  ex- 
pected to  obtain  a  livelihood  by  public  service.  All  their  edu- 
cation has  been  shaped  to  this  end,  yet  they  lack  just  that  one 
thing  which  will  enable  them  to  do  it.  That  mode  of  approach 
and  expression  which  is  essential  to  their  acceptableness  as 
writers  and  speakers  is  lacking ;  and  so  their  lives  are  failures. 


! 2  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

The  professorship  of  rhetoric  and  elocution  has  been  re- 
garded in  most  colleges  as  rather  ornamental  than  useful ;  and 
only  here  and  there  has  its  incumbent  manifested  the  disposi- 
tion and  the  power  to  magnify  his  office,  and  perform  the 
great  duty  that  is  placed  in  his  hands.  Slovenly  writers  and 
awkward  and  unattractive  speakers  are  turned  out  of  our  col- 
leges every  year,  almost  by  thousands,  whose  failure  in  public 
life  is  assured  from  the  first,  because  they  have  acquired  no 
mastery  of  the  arts  of  expression.  Men  of  inferior  knowledge 
and  inferior  mental  culture  surpass  them  in  the  strife  for  public 
favor  and  influence,  by  address  and  skill.  They  are  disgusted 
with  the  public,  and  charge  their  failure  upon  the  popular  stu- 
pidity. "Our  honest  toil  has  been  in  vain,"  they  say;  "for 
the  people  cannot  appreciate  what  we  are,  or  what  we  have 
done.  They  like  the  shallow  man  best." 

This  is  not  a  just  judgment.  The  brighter  and  stronger 
the  man,  the  better  the  people  like  him,  always  provided  that 
he  understands  the  arts  of  writing  and  speech.  Mr.  Beecher, 
Mr.  Phillips,  Mr.  George  W.  Curtis,  and  Mr.  Collyer  are  not 
shallow  men,  but  they  are  accepted  everywhere,  and  in  all 
assemblies,  as  the  masters  of  oratory.  Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Clay, 
and  Mr.  S.  S.  Prentiss,  in  the  old  days,  were  not  shallow  men, 
but  they  were  orators,  and  their  power  over  multitudes  was  the 
power  of  giants.  Not  one  of  these  men  would  now  be  heard 
of  as  men  of  national  reputation  had  they  not  won  the  mastery 
of  expression. 

There  is  a  quality  in  all  good  writing — writing  thoroughly 
adapted  to  its  purpose — which  we  call  "  readableness."  It  is 
hard  to  define  it,  because  in  different  productions  it  depends  on 
different  elements.  Wit  and  humor  impart  this  quality,  if  they 
are  spontaneous  and  unobtrusive.  Eminent  lucidity,  graceful- 
ness of  structure,  epigrammatic  terseness  and  strength,  down- 


CULTURE.  i^ 

right  moral  earnestness,  gracefulness  and  facility  of  illustration, 
apposite  antithesis,  forms  of  expression  and  uses  of  words  that 
are  characteristic  of  individual  thought  and  feeling — each  and 
all  of  these  have  their  function  in  imparting  readableness  to  the 
productions  of  the  pen.  We  find  Carlyle  readable  through  a 
quality  which  is  Carlyle's  own — which  he  neither  borrowed 
nor  has  the  ability  to  lend.  Emerson  and  Lowell  and  Holmes 
are  readable  because  of  their  individual  flavor.  There  are  ten 
thousand  educated  men  in  America  who  are  fairly  capable  of 
comprehending  these  writers,  yet  who  would  render  them  all 
unreadable  by  undertaking  to  clothe  their  thoughts  and  fancies 
in  their  own  forms  of  language.  When  this  strong  individual 
flavor  is  lacking — an  element  that  belongs  mainly  to  genius — 
art  must  be  more  thoroughly  cultivated.  No  man  of  moderate 
ability  and  education  can  possibly  make  himself  acceptable  as 
a  writer  without  a  skill  in  the  arts  of  expression  which  can  be 
won  alone  through  patient  study  and  long  practice. 

We  have  but  few  men  in  the  country  who  designedly  write 
for  the  few.  We  all  seek  to  write  for  the  million  and  to  find 
the  largest  audience.  Readableness,  then,  must  depend  very 
largely  upon  still  another  element,  which  is,  perhaps,  more  im- 
portant than  all — direct,  intelligent  ministry  to  the  public  need. 
People  will  not  be  interested  in  the  discussion  of  subjects  that 
have  no  practical  relation  to  their  life.  Any  production,  in  or- 
der to  be  readable,  must  be  based  on  a  knowledge  of  the  wants 
of  the  people  and  the  age.  What  will  amuse,  instruct,  enlighten, 
or  morally  and  intellectually  interest  the  people?  The  writer 
who  is  not  sufficiently  in  sympathy  with  the  people  and  the  age 
to  answer  this  question  intelligently  to  himself,  cannot  be  read- 
able, except  by  accident.  The  man  who  shuts  himself  up  in 
his  library,  away  from  his  kind,  and  refuses  to  make  himself 
conversant  with  their  wants  and  with  the  questions  that  concern 


!  4  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

them,  has  no  one  to  blame  but  himself  if  they  refuse  to  read 
what  he  writes. 

The  clergyman,  conscious  of  Christian  purpose  and  of 
thorough  culture,  and  earnestly  believing  that  he  understands 
the  message  of  his  Master,  finds  with  grief  that  he  is  not  an 
accepted  teacher.  Let  him  learn,  if  it  be  not  too  late,  that  it  is 
his  mode  of  presenting  truth  that  makes  him  impotent.  Water 
tastes  better  from  cut-glass  than  from  pewter,  and  people  will 
go  where  they  are  served  from  crystal.  Salt  is  salt,  but  what 
if  it  have  lost  its  savor  ?  There  are  very  few  preachers  who  fail 
in  knowledge  of  their  message,  but  there  are  multitudes  who 
know  nothing  of  the  people  to  whom  they  deliver  it,  or  of  the 
art  of  so  proclaiming  it  that  men  will  pause  to  hear  and  heed. 
,The  art  of  writing  and  speaking  is  both  shamefully  and  fatally 
neglected.  Without  it,  cultivated  to  its  highest  practicable 
point,  the  learning  of  the  schools  is  comparatively  useless. 
Without  it,  the  preacher  is  utterly  unprepared  for  his  work;  for 
the  grand,  essential  thing  which  will  make  his  knowledge  and 
culture  practically  available  is  wanting.  The  man  who  cannot 
say  well  that  which  he  has  to  say  may  safely  conclude  that  he 
has  no  call  to  the  pulpit. 

There  is  no  editor  of  a  newspaper  or  a  magazine  who  is  not 
constantly  returning  manuscripts  full  of  useful  and  good  ma- 
terial, which  he  cannot  publish  because  it  is  not  readable.  The 
style  is  turgid,  or  involved,  or  affected,  or  slovenly,  or  diffuse. 
If  the  style  happens  to  be  good,  the  subject  is  uninteresting,  or 
it  is  treated  for  scholars,  and  lumbered  with  redundant  learning. 
Of  course  the  editor  would  not  hurt  the  pride  of  the  writers, 
and  in  his  politeness  he  simply  says  that  their  productions  are 
not  "available."  They  think  the  editor  stupid,  and  he  is  con- 
tent, so  long  as  they  do  not  accuse  him  of  ill-nature.  It  is  only 
when  they  charge  him  with  the  purpose  of  refusing  all  writing 


CULTURE.  rij 

that  is  better  than  his  own  that  he  loses  patience,  and  regrets 
that  he  had  not  been  frank  and  definite  in  the  statement  of  his 
reasons  for  declining  their  offerings. 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 

THE  LITERARY  CLASS. 

In  the  great  world  of  common  and  uncommon  men  and 
women  who  are  outside  of  the  pale  of  literary  culture,  there 
exist  certain  prejudices  against  the  literary  class,  which  are  lit- 
tle recognized  and  little  talked  about,  but  which  are  positive 
and  pernicious.  There  is  a  feeling  that  this  class  is  conceited, 
supercilious,  selfish,  and,  to  a  very  great  extent,  useless.  There 
is  a  feeling  that  it  is  exclusive;  that  it  arrogates  to  itself  the 
possession  of  tastes  and  powers  above  the  rest  of  the  world, 
upon  which  it  looks  down  with  contemptuous  superiority. 
There  is,  undoubtedly,  connected  with  this  prejudice  a  dim 
conviction  that  the  literary  class  is  really  superior  to  the  rest  of 
the  world  in  its  acquirements,  its  tastes,  and  its  sources  of 
pleasure ;  that  culture  is  better  than  stocks  and  bonds ;  that 
literary  life  occupies  a  higher  plane  than  commercial,  manu- 
facturing, and  agricultural  life,  and  that  it  holds  a  wealth  which 
money  cannot  buy,  and  which  ordinary  values  can  in  no  way 
measure.  Much  of  the  unspoken  protest  that  rises  against  the 
assumptions  of  the  literary  class,  and  against  the  arrogance 
which  it  is  supposed  to  possess,  undoubtedly  comes  from  a 
feeling  of  inferiority  and  impotence — of  conscious  inability  to 
rise  into  its  atmosphere,  and  to  appropriate  its  wealth  and  its 
satisfactions. 


LITER  A  TURE  AND  LITER  A  R  Y  MEN.  j  7 

Having  said  this,  it  may  also  be  said  that  the  literary  class  is 
very  largely  to  blame  for  this  state  of  things.  It  has  almost 
uniformly  failed  to  recognize  its  relations  and  its  duties  to  the 
world  at  large.  It  has  been  bound  up  in  itself.  It  has  read 
for  itself,  thought  for  itself,  written  for  itself.  It  has  had  respect 
mainly  to  its  own  critical  judgments.  It  has  been  a  kind  of 
close  corporation — a  mutual  admiration  society.  It  has  looked 
for  its  inspirations  mainly  within  its  own  circle.  It  has,  in  ten 
thousand  ways,  nourished  the  idea  that  it  is  not  interested  in 
the  outside  world ;  that  it  does  not  care  for  the  outside  world 
and  its  opinions ;  that  it  owes  no  duty  to  it,  and  has  no  mes- 
sage for  it.  Its  criticisms  and  judgments,  in  their  motive  and 
method,  are  often  of  the  most  frivolous  character.  An  author 
is  not  judged  according  to  what  he  has  done  for  the  world, 
but  according  to  what  he  has  done  for  himself,  and  for  what  it 
is  pleased  to  denominate  "literature."  To  certain,  or  most 
uncertain,  men  of  art,  or  canons  of  art,  or  notions  of  art,  it 
holds  itself  in  allegiance,  ignoring  the  uses  of  art  altogether. 
It  has  its  end  in  itself.  It  is  a  cat  that  plays  with  and  swal- 
lows its  own  tail. 

Now,  it  seems  to  us  that  if  the  literary  class  has  any  apology 
for  existence,  that  apology  must  come  from  its  uses  to  the 
world.  It  entertains  a  certain  contempt  for  the  world,  which 
does  not  appreciate  and  will  not  take  its  wares,  forgetting  that 
it  has  not  endeavored,  in  any  way,  to  serve  the  world,  by  the 
adaptation  of  its  wares  to  the  world's  use.  Endeavoring  to  be 
true  to  itself,  bowing  in  devotion  and  loyalty  to  its  own  opin- 
ions and  notions,  it  utters  its  word,  and  then,  because  the  great 
outside  world  will  not  hear  it,  complains,  and  finds  its  revenge 
in  holding  the  popular  judgment  in  contempt.  It  gives  the 
world  what  it  cannot  appreciate,  what  it  cannot  appropriate; 
what,  in  its  condition,  it  does  not  need — what  it  turns  its  back 
2 


!  8  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

upon — and  finds  its  consolation  in  inside  praise,  and  a  reputa- 
tion for  good  work  among  those  who  do  not  need  it. 

In  the  best  Book  we  have,  there  are  certain  rules  of  life  laid 
down,  that  are  just  as  good  for  the  literary  as  for  the  moral 
and  religious  world.  The  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  minis- 
tered unto,  but  to  minister.  He  that  would  be  great  must  be 
a  servant.  If  any  man  has  special  gifts,  and  achieves  special 
culture  of  those  gifts,  his  greatness  is  brought,  by  irreversible 
law  and  the  divine  policy,  into  immediate  relation  with  the 
want  of  the  world.  He  is  to  be  a  servant,  and  thus  to  prove 
his  title  to  lordship.  His  true  glory  is  only  to  be  found  in  min- 
istering. If  he  do  not  minister,  he  has  no  right  to  honor.  If 
he  will  not  minister,  he  holds  his  gift  unworthily,  and  has  no 
more  reason  to  expect  the  honor  of  the  world  for  what  he  does, 
than  he  would  if  he  did  nothing.  The  military  and  adminis- 
trative gifts  of  Washington  were,  undoubtedly,  well  known  and 
honored  among  the  military  and  political  ^classes,  but  their  sig- 
nificance and  glory  were  only  brought  out  in  service.  He  is 
honored  and  revered,  not  because  he  served  his  class,  but  be- 
cause he  served  his  country.  Those  eminent  gifts  of  his  had 
no  meaning  save  as  they  were  related  to  the  wants  of  his  time; 
and  their  glory  is  that  they  served  those  wants.  The  glory  of 
Watt,  and  Fulton,  and  Stevenson,  and  Morse,  and  Howe,  is, 
not  that  they  were  ingenious  men,  but  that  they  placed  their 
ingenuity  in  the  service  of  the  world.  The  honor  we  give  to 
Howard  and  Florence  Nightingale  is  not  given  to  their  sympa- 
thetic hearts,  but  to  their  helpful  hands. 

Why  should  the  literary  class,  of  all  the  gifted  men  and 
women  of  the  world,  alone  hold  its  gifts  in  service  of  itself? 
Why  should  it  refuse  to  come  down  into  the  service  of  life  ? 
There  is  an  audience  waiting  for  every  literary  man  and  woman 
who  will  speak  to  it.  Why  should  the  world  be  blamed  for  not 


LITERA  TURE  AND  LITERAR  Y  MEN.  jg 

overhearing  what  literary  men  and  women  say  to  each  other  ? 
The  talk  is  not  meant  for  them.  It  has  nothing  in  it  for  them, 
and  there  is  a  feeling  among  them — not  thoroughly  well-de- 
fined, perhaps,  but  real — that  they  are  defrauded.  All  this 
feeling  of  contempt  for  the  non-literary  world  on  one  side,  and 
this  jealousy  of  the  literary  class  on  the  other,  will  not  exist 
for  a  moment  after  the  relations  between  them  are  practically 
recognized.  When  the  world  is  served,  it  will  regard  its  servant 
as  its  benefactor,  and  the  great  interest  of  literature  will  be 
prosperous.  Book  after  book  falls  dead  from  the  press,  be- 
cause, and  only  because,  it  is  not  the  medium  of  service.  The 
world  finds  nothing  in  it  that  it  needs.  Why  should  the  world 
buy  it?  The  golden  age  of  American  literature  can  never 
dawn  until  the  world  has  learned  to  look  upon  the  literary  class 
as  its  helper,  its  inspirer,  its  leader  in  culture  and  thought;  and 
it  can  never  learn  to  look  thus  upon  that  class  until  it  has  been 
ministered  to  in  all  its  wants  by  direct  puq)ose,  in  simple  things 
as  well  as  in  sublime. 

HABITS  OF  LITERARY  LABOR. 

When  Mr.  Pickwick  informed  Mr.  Jingle  that  his  friend  Mr. 
Snodgrass  had  a  strong  poetic  turn,  Mr.  Jingle  responded: 

"So  have  I — Epic  poem — ten  thousand  lines — revolution  of 
July — composed  it  on  the  spot — Mars  by  day,  Apollo  by 
night — bang  the  field-piece — twang  the  lyre — fired  a  musket — 
fired  with  an  idea — rushed  into  wine-shop — wrote  it  down — 
back  again — whiz,  bang — another  idea — wine-shop  again — 
pen  and  ink — back  again— cut  and  slash — noble  time,  sir." 

There  are  other  people  beside  Mr.  Pickwick  who  accept  this 
method  of  literary  production  as  quite  natural  and  legitimate. 
We  remember  seeing,  some  years  ago,  a  sketch  by  an  extrava- 
gant humorist  of  a  man,  who  wrote  a  book  in  a  single  night, 


20  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

tossing  each  sheet  as  it  was  finished  over  his  left  shoulder, 
pursuing  his  work  with  a  pen  that  hissed  with  the  heat  of  the 
terrible  friction,  and  fainting  away  into  the  arms  of  anxious 
friends  when  the  task  was  finished.  Preposterous  as  the  fiction 
was,  it  hardly  exaggerated  an  idea  prevalent  in  many  minds 
that  literary  production  is  a  sort  of  miraculous  birth,  that  is 
as  strenuous  and  inevitable  as  the  travail  which  brings  a  new 
being  into  life.  Indeed,  there  are  some,  perhaps  many,  writers 
who  practically  entertain  the  same  notion.  They  depend  upon 
moods,  and  if  the  moods  do  not  come,  nothing  comes.  They 
go  to  their  work  without  a  will,  and  impotently  wait  for  some 
angel  to  stir  the  pool ;  and  if  the  angel  fails  to  appear,  that  set- 
tles the  question  for  them.  Such  men,  of  course,  accomplish 
but  little.  Few  of  them  ever  do  more  than  show  what  possi- 
bilities of  achievement  are  within  them.  They  disappoint 
themselves,  disappoint  their  friends,  and  disappoint  a  waiting 
public  that  soon  ceases  to  wait,  and  soon  transfers  its  expecta- 
tions to  others.  Literary  life  has  very  few  satisfactions  for 
them,  and  often  ends  in  a  resort  to  stimulating  drinks  or  drugs 
in  order  to  produce  artificially  the  mood  which  will  not  come 
of  itself. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  curiosity  among  literary  men  in  re- 
gard to  the  habits  of  each  other.  Men  who  find  their  work 
hard,  their  health  poor,  and  their  production  slow,  are  always 
curious  concerning  the  habits  of  those  who  accomplish  a  great 
deal  with  apparent  ease.  Some  men  do  all  their  writing  in  the 
morning.  Some  of  them  even  rise  before  their  households, 
and  do  half  their  day's  work  before  breakfast.  Others  do  not 
feel  like  going  to  work  until  after  breakfast  and  after  exercise 
in  the  open  air.  Some  fancy  that  they  can  only  work  in  the 
evening,  and  some  of  these  must  wait  for  their  best  hours  until 
all  but  themselves  are  asleep.  Some  cannot  use  their  brains 


LITER  A  TURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN.  2 1 

at  all  immediately  after  exercise.  Some  smoke  while  writing, 
some  write  on  the  stimulus  of  coffee,  and  some  on  that  of  al- 
cohol. Irregularity  and  strange  whims  are  supposed  to  be 
characteristic  of  genius.  Indeed,  it  rather  tells  against  the 
reputation  of  a  man  to  be  methodical  in  his  habits  of  literary 
labor.  Men  of  this  stripe  are  supposed  to  be  mechanical 
plodders,  without  wings,  and  without  the  necessity  of  an  at- 
mosphere in  which  to  spread  them. 

We  know  of  no  better  guide  in  the  establishment  of  habits 
of  literary  labor  than  common  sense.  After  a  good  night's 
sleep  and  a  refreshing  breakfast,  a  man  ought  to  be  in  his  best 
condition  for  work,  and  he  is.  All  literary  men  who  accom- 
plish much  and  maintain  their  health  do  their  work  in  the 
morning,  and  do  it  every  morning.  It  is  the  daily  task,  per- 
formed morning  after  morning,  throughout  the  year — carefully, 
conscientiously,  persistently — that  tells  in  great  results.  But 
in  order  to  perform  this  task  in  this  way,  there  must  be  regular 
habits  of  sleep,  with  which  nothing  shall  be  permitted  to  inter- 
fere. The  man  who  eats  late  suppers,  attends  parties  and 
clubs,  or  dines  out  every  night,  cannot  work  in  the  morning. 
Such  a  man  has,  in  fact,  no  time  to  work  in  the  whole  round 
of  the  hours.  Late  and  irregular  habits  at  night  are  fatal  to 
literary  production  as  a  rule.  The  exceptional  cases  are  those 
which  have  fatal  results  upon  life  in  a  few  years. 

One  thing  is  certain :  no  great  thing  can  be  done  in  literary 
production  without  habit  of  some  sort ;  and  we  believe  that  all 
writers  who  maintain  their  health  work  in  the  morning.  The 
night-work  on  our  daily  papers  is  killing  work,  and  ought  to 
be  followed  only  a  few  years  by  any  man.  A  man  whose  work 
is  that  of  literary  production  ought  always  to  go  to  his  labor 
with  a  willing  mind,  and  he  can  only  do  this  by  being  accus- 
tomed to  take  it  up  at  regular  hours.  We  called  upon  a 


22 


E I  'ER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


preacher  the  other  day — one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  able 
men  in  the  American  pulpit.  He  was  in  his  study,  which  was 
out  of  his  house ;  and  his  wife  simply  had  to  say  that  there 
was  no  way  by  which  she  could  get  at  him,  even  if  she  should 
wish  to  see  him  herself.  He  was  wise.  He  had  his  regular  hours 
of  labor,  which  no  person  was  permitted  to  interrupt.  In  the 
afternoon  he  could  be  seen ;  in  the  morning,  never.  A  rule 
like  this  is  absolutely  necessary  to  every  man  who  wishes  to 
accomplish  much.  It  is  astonishing  how  much  a  man  may 
accomplish  with  the  habit  of  doing  his  utmost  during  three  or 
four  hours  in  the  morning.  He  can  do  this  every  day,  have 
his  afternoons  and  evenings  to  himself,  maintain  the  highest 
health,  and  live  a  life  of  generous  length. 

The  reason  why  some  men  never  feel  like  work  in  the 
morning  is,  either  that  they  have  formed  other  habits,  or  that 
they  have  spent  the  evening  improperly.  They  have  only  to 
go  to  their  work  every  morning,  and  do  the  best  they  can  for 
a  dozen  mornings  in  succession,  to  find  that  the  disposition 
and  power  to  work  will  come.  It  will  cost  a  severe  effort  of 
the  will,  but  it  will  pay.  Then  the  satisfaction  of  the  task 
performed  will  sweeten  all  the  other  hours.  There  is  no 
darker  or  deadlier  shadow  than  that  cast  upon  a  man  by  a 
deferred  and  waiting  task.  It  haunts  him,  chases  him,  harries 
him,  sprinkles  bitterness  in  his  every  cup,  plants  thorns  in  his 
pillow,  and  renders  him  every  hour  more  unfit  for  its  perform- 
ance. The  difference  between  driving  literary  work  and  being 
driven  by  it  is  the  difference  between  heaven  and  hell.  It  is 
the  difference  between  working  with  a  will  and  working  against 
it.  It  is  the  difference  between  being  a  master  and  being  a 
slave. 

Good  habit  is  a  relief,  too,  from  all  temptation  to  the  use  of 
stimulants.  By  it  a  man's  brain  may  become  just  as  reliable 


LITER  A  TURE  A  .YD  LITER  A  R  Y  JfE.V.  2  3 

a  producer  as  his  hand,  and  the  cheerfulffess  and  healthfulness 
which  it  will  bring  to  the  mind  will  show  themselves  in  all  the 
issues  of  the  mind.  The  writings  of  those  contemporaneous 
geniuses,  Scott  and  Byron,  illustrate  this  point  sufficiently. 
One  is  all  robust  health,  the  result  of  sound  habit ;  the  other 
all  fever  and  irregularity.  What  could  Poe  not  have  done 
with  Mr.  Longfellow's  habit?  No;  there  is  but  one  best 
way  in  which  to  do  literary  work,  and  that  is  the  way  in 
which  any  other  work  is  done — after  the  period  devoted  to 
rest,  and  with  the  regularity  of  the  sun. 

LITERARY  STYLE. 

We  have  Dr.  Johnson's  authority  for  the  statement  that 
"  Whoever  wishes  to  attain  an  English  style,  familiar  but  not 
coarse,  and  elegant  but  not  ostentatious,  must  give  his  days 
and  nights  to  the  volumes  of  Addison."  There  is,  undoubtedly, 
much  to  be  gained  by  the  writer  through  familiarity  with  pure 
models  of  style.  The  recognized  classics  of  all  languages, 
ancient  and  modern,  assist  in  the  direction  and  discipline  of 
taste,  for  they  yield  instruction  in  certain  common  qualities, 
without  which  no  style  can  be  good,  however  strongly  flavored 
by  attractive  individuality.  Simplicity,  directness,  perspicacity 
and  perspicuity  form  the  basis  of  all  good  style,  but  a  man 
may  exhibit  all  these  qualities  in  his  literary  performances 
without  having  any  style  at  all.  One  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  a  style  who  apprehends  all  things  uncolored  by  imagina- 
tion, and  aims  to  record  and  interpret  them  with  literal  exact- 
ness. Dr.  Johnson  himself  did  what  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible for  Noah  Webster  to  do — he  carried  style  into  his  dic- 
tionary. The  man  who  could  say :  "  I  am  not  so  lost  in  lexi- 
cography as  to  forget  that  words  are  the  daughters  of  earth, 
and  that  things  are  the  sons  of  heaven,"  was  undoubtedly 


24  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

injured  as  a  lexicographer  by  an  imagination  which  made  him 
the  author  of  a  style  still  recognized  as  "Johnsonian." 

We  do  not  hold  an  unquestioning  faith  in  Dr.  Johnson's  pre- 
scription. A  style  may  be  corrected,  chastened  and  modified  in 
various  ways  by  a  familiarity  with  models,  especially  with  mod- 
els with  which  the  writer  finds  himself  in  sympathy ;  but  we  do 
not  believe  that  a  good  style  was  ever  "  attained  "  by  conscious 
or  unconscious  imitation.  Fish  is  good,  but  fishy  is  always  bad. 
Nothing  is  more  offensive  than  the  coloring  that  a  weak  writer 
always  receives  from  the  last  strong  man  he  has  read.  Every 
possessor  of  a  positive  style,  provided  he  be  a  valued  writer, 
produces  a  school  of  imitators,  who  try  to  do  their  little  things 
in  the  way  in  which  he  does  his  large  ones,  and  make  themselves 
ridiculous,  of  course.  A  worthy  style  must  be  the  fitting  expres- 
sion of  worthy  thought.  Chesterfield  calls  style  "  the  dress  of 
thoughts,"  but  to  have  dressed  Chesterfield's  thoughts  in  John- 
son's or  Addison's  style  would  have  been  the  most  absurd 
masquerading.  The  same  may  be  said  of  almost  any  other 
man.  Washington  Irving  might  have  received  great  good,  in 
his  early  life,  by  giving  "his  days  and  nights  to  the  volumes 
of  Addison,"  because  his  was  a  cognate  genius ;  but  Carlyle 
could  no  more  have  clothed  his  thoughts  in  the  style  of  Addi- 
son than  he  could  have  fenced  or  boxed  in  a  strait-jacket. 
Style  that  is  not  the  outgrowth  of  a  man's  individuality,  is,  of 
course,  without  significance  or  value  in  the  expression  of  his 
thoughts.  It  is  never  thoroughly  formed  until  character  is 
formed,  and  until  the  expression  of  thought  has  become  habit- 
ual. 

No  man  of  power  can  do  himself  a  greater  wrong  than  to 
make  an  attempt  to  acquire  the  style  of  another  man,  under  the 
impression  that  that  style  will  fit  his  thought.  He  might  as 
well  have  his  clothes  made  to  his  neighbor's  measure.  There  is 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN.  25 

not  one  chance  in  a  thousand  of  a  fit,  unless  it  be  a  fit  of  disap- 
pointment or  disgust.  The  sensitiveness  of  language  to  fhe  im- 
pulses and  characteristics  of  the  spirit  that  sits  behind  and  utters 
it,  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  the  world.  Its  flexibility  in  shaping 
itself  to  every  variety  of  thought  and  every  form  of  imagination, 
its  power  to  transmit  an  atmosphere  or  an  aroma  which  no  anal- 
ysis of  word  or  expression  betrays,  and  the  ease  with  which 
it  is  made  either  puerile  or  majestic,  in  accordance  with  the 
spirit  of  its  maker,  show  that  style,  unborn  of  the  individual,  is 
an  utterly  valueless  attainment.  We  can  imagine  no  good  to 
come  from  "  attaining  "  a  style  by  studying  other  men,  except, 
perhaps,  to  cover  up  the  literary  coxcombry  of  such  writers  as 
Willis,  the  rhythmical  follies  of  such  men  as  Poe,  or  the  affected 
barbarisms  of — Mr.  Emerson  knows  who,  because  he  once  did 
the  wrorld  great  mischief  by  praising  him. 

All  direct  aims  at  the  acquisition  of  a  style,  for  the  style's 
sake,  are  always,  in  some  sense  or  another,  failures.  We  beg  the 
lady's  pardon  for  mentioning  it,  but  Gail  Hamilton's  incisive, 
brusque  and  forceful  style, — sometimes  saucy,  always  clear, 
though  often  redundant,  and  strong  beyond  the  average  femi- 
nine quality, — has  done,  without  any  premeditated  guilt,  a  great 
deal  of  harm  to  the  lower  grade  of  literary  women  in  America. 
The  weaker  woman,  undertaking  to  speak  through  such  a  style, 
is  simply  and  insipidly  pert.  She  lacks  the  strong  common 
sense  and  the  height  and  breadth  of  imagination  of  her  model, 
and  so  appears  as  ridiculous  as  if  she  were  to  "  assist "  at  a  New 
York  party  in  an  old  dress  of  Queen  Elizabeth  or  the  soldier- 
clothes  of  Jean  d'Arc. 

Some  years  ago  Mr.  Congdon  was  a  writer  on  "The  New 
York  Tribune."  He  reduced  sarcasm,  irony, — we  had  almost 
said  blackguardism, — to  a  fine  art.  He  could  abuse  a  polit- 
ical opponent,  or  a  social  or  literary  pretender,  by  ingenuities 


2  6  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

of  badinage  so  brilliant  as  to  attract  and  delight  every  reader, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  leave  the  object  of  his  attacks  hopelessly 
floundering  in  the  public  contempt.  The  efforts  that  have  been 
made  in  the  newspaper  world  from  that  day  to  this,  by  editorial 
writers  and  sensational  correspondents,  to  repeat  his  perform- 
ances, have  been  pitiful.  No  one  has  equaled  him,  and  the 
attempt  to  fight  with  another  man's  weapons  has  drawn  upon 
the  clumsy  thief  of  the  old  lance  the  punishment  of  public  con- 
tempt which  he  sought  to  inflict.  Mr.  Headly,  in  the  hey-dey 
of  his  literary  career,  had  some  sins  to  answer  for,  even  if  he 
were  not  a  sufferer  for  the  sins  of  others ;  for  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  believe  that  the  writer  of  the  exquisite  "  Letters  from 
Italy"  was  also  the  author  of  the  florid  and  forced  periods  of 
"  Napoleon  and  His  Marshals." 

As  a  fair  illustration  of  the  absolute  impossibility  of  one  man 
writing  in  the  style  of  another,  take  the  two  great  poets  of  Eng- 
land now  living,  and  let  Browning  and  Tennyson  undertake  to 
acquire  each  the  style  of  the  other.  It  would  absolutely  ruin 
both.  All  writers  who  are  good  for  anything  have  a  style  of 
their  own.  It  can  no  more  be  transmitted  or  "attained"  than 
the  powers  and  qualities  in  which  it  had  its  birth;  and  a  man 
who  is  so  strongly  impressed,  or  magnetized,  by  the  style  of 
another,  that  he  finds  himself  trying  to  work  in  his  way,  has  his 
own  weakness  and  lack  of  individuality  demonstrated  to  him. 
It  follows  that  most  of  the  criticisms  of  style  are  equally  without 
common  sense  and  common  justice — so  far,  at  least,  as  they 
are  made  with  the  idea  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  standard 
of  style.  There  is  abundant  wealth  of  literary  style  in  the 
world  which  has  no  characteristic  similarity  to  Addison's; 
and  the  young  writers  who  fancy  that  they  must  shape  their 
style  upon  some  approved  or  popular  model,  would  do  well  to 
abandon  the  effort  at  once.  A  good  style  is  always  the  natural 


LITER  A  TURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN.  2j 

offspring  of  a  good  literary  mind.  It  is  polished  and  chastened 
by  self-criticism,  and  is  a  growth  from  the  centre.  A  style  thus 
formed  is  the  only  legitimate  representative  of  a  literary  man. 
No  lack  of  heart,  or  brains,  or  culture,  or  marked  and  large 
individuality,  can  be  hidden  by  adopting  another  man's  literary 
dress  and  presentment.  If  a  man  has  no  style  of  his  own,  he 
iVas  no  literary  calling  whatsoever. 

NATURE  AND  LITERATURE. 

If  we  were  to  look  for  a  demonstration  of  the  existence  of 
a  spiritual  world,  of  which  the  things  apprehended  by  our 
senses  are  the  typical  expression,  we  should  find  it  in  literature, 
and  on  that  beautiful  field  of  illustration  where  we  so  readily 
apprehend  spiritual  truth  through  the  forms  and  relations  of 
material  objects.  A  preacher  rises  in  his  desk  and  tells  us 
that  there  is  no  awkward  or  rough  element  which  can  be  intro- 
duced into  home  life  that  may  not  become  the  occasion  of  new 
beauty  and  loveliness  to  that  life ;  and  we  wonder  how  it  can 
be.  Then  he  paints  for  us  a  pure  rill  gurgling  from  a  rock,  and 
picking  its  dainty  way  down  the  ravine  into  the  grassy  valley. 
Half  way  there  thunders  from  the  hill  a  huge  bowlder,  that 
plants  itself  squarely  in  its  path,  tearing  its  banks,  and  throw- 
ing the  mud  in  every  direction.  Quietly  the  rill  makes  a  little 
detour,  goes  around  the  rock,  nourishes  vines  that  weave  the 
uncouth  intruder  all  over  with  verdure,  and  builds  for  itself  a 
temple  of  beauty  just  there — a  wayside  shrine,  at  which  all 
pilgrims  pause  for  worship.  At  once  we  see  the  spiritual  truth, 
and  recognize  its  perfect  analogies.  The  rill  verifies  the  propo- 
sition, and  we  no  more  think  of  questioning  its  word  than  if  it 
were  spoken  to  us  from  heaven.  It  is  this  utter  truthfulness  of 
nature  to  the  realm  of  thought  that  demonstrates  its  origin  in 
thought,  and  proves  itself  to  be  an  expression  of  thought  in 
various  forms  and  motions  of  matter. 


28  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

It  follows  that  no  one  can  be  fully  learned  as  a  literary  man 
who  has  not  learned  of  nature.  The  strong  men  of  the  press, 
the  pulpit,  the  platform,  are  those  who  are  the  most  bountifully 
furnished  with  the  natural  analogies  of  their  thoughts.  The 
man  who  can  illustrate  best  is  the  best  teacher,  as  he  is  always 
the  most  attractive.  The  man  who  can  make  us  see  his 
thought — who  can  point  out  or  paint  to  us  its  exact  analogy 
in  nature — is  the  successful  man,  in  whatever  department  of 
intellectual  or  spiritual  instruction.  The  more  closely  a  man 
lives  in  sympathy  with  nature — the  more  deeply  he  looks  into 
it — the  more  fully  he  realizes  the  fact  that  it  is  only  the  lan- 
guage of  the  spiritual,  placed  before  him  to  read,  and  put  in 
his  hands  to  use.  He  builds  its  rocks  into  his  thoughts,  he 
weaves  its  beauty  into  his  imaginations,  he  clothes  his  fancies 
with  its  atmosphere.  The  rhythmic  day  and  night  become 
poetry,  the  setting  sun  a  god  with  flaming  wings,  the  birds, 
chanting  choirs  of  cherubim.  He  sees  straight  through  all 
into  a  world  of  which  these  things  are  fading  shadows,  or 
startling  intimations,  or  perfect  demonstrations.  In  short,  he 
sees,  hears,  smells,  tastes,  feels  thought,  as  it  appears  in  a  ma- 
terial form,  among  material  conditions;  and  with  his  thought 
thus  apprehended,  he  has  the  power  to  represent  it  to  those 
whom  he  is  called  upon  to  instruct. 

We  are  led  into  this  strain  of  remark  by  the  consideration 
that  there  are  great  numbers  of  young  men,  scattered  up  and 
down  the  country,  in  schools  and  colleges,  who  lament  that 
they  have  not  the  advantages  of  a  city  life.  They  feel  that  in 
the  city  there  are  great  opportunities  of  education,  wonderful 
stimulus  to  labor,  inspiring  competitions,  large  libraries,  social 
advantages,  contact  with  high  literary  culture,  eloquence  to  be 
had  for  the  seeking,  centralized  knowledge  and  brotherly  sym- 
pathy. Their  country  lives  seem  poor  and  barren  in  com- 
parison. 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


29 


Well,  what  they  think  of  the  city  is,  in  most  respects,  true ; 
but  what  they  think  of  their  country  conditions  is  not  true  at 
all.  No  man  is  fit  for  the  literary  or  the  productively  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  city  who  has  not  had  either  a  country  train- 
ing, or,  for  a  considerable  period  of  his  life,  direct  and  sym- 
pathetic association  with  nature.  Blessed  is  th«  literary  man, 
the  public  man,  the  man  of  the  pulpit,  who  was  bred  among 
the  fields,  and  woods,  and  brooks;  who  has  known  the  ocean 
in  all  its  moods,  and  with  whom  the  sky  with  its  country  blue 
and  its  silver  stars  and  all  its  machinery  and  phenomena  of 
summer  and  winter  storms,  has  been  an  open  and  favorite 
book. 

Suppose  that  Mr.  Beecher  had  been  confined  to  the  city 
during  all  his  young  life.  The  result  would  have  been  that 
we  should  not  have  had  Mr.  Beecher  at  all.  We  should  have 
had  a  strong,  dramatic  man,  notable  in  many  respects — but 
he  would  have  been  so  shorn  of  his  wonderful  power  of  illus- 
tration, that  his  pulpit  would  have  been  but  a  common  one. 
It  is  quite  safe  for  us  to  say  that  he  has  learned  more  of  that 
which  has  been  of  use  to  him,  as  a  public  teacher,  from  nature, 
than  from  his  theological  schools  and  books.  He  has  recog- 
nized the  word  which  God  speaks  to  us  in  nature  as  truly 
divine — just  as  divine  as  that  which  he  speaks  in  revelation. 
His  quick  apprehension  of  the  analogies  that  exist  between 
nature  and  the  spiritual  world  has  been  the  key  by  which  he 
has  opened  the  door  into  his  wonderful  success.  A  theolo- 
gian who  has  mastered  his  science  only,  is  as  poorly  armed  for 
effective  work  as  a  child ;  and  all  these  young  men,  pining  for 
the  advantages  of  city  life,  ought  to  realize  that  they  are  living 
where  alone  they  can  fit  themselves  for  the  highest  success. 
They  cannot  know  too  much  of  nature,  learned  directly  from 
her  own  wide-open  book.  It  is  all  illuminated  with  analogies 


3o  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

which  are  not  only  corrective  of  their  crudely  formed  ideas, 
but  full  of  all  fruitful  suggestions  touching  their  work.  There 
is  not  a  glimpse  of  a  brook,  a  whisper  of  a  leaf,  a  habit  of  an 
animal,  a  sweep  of  a  storm's  wing,  a  blush  of  a  flower,  an  up- 
rising of  a  morning,  a  sparkle  of  a  sea,  or  a  sob  of  a  wave, 
that  is  not  eloquent,  or  may  not  be  made  eloquent,  in  the  expo- 
sition of  intellectual  and  spiritual  truth ;  and  he  whose  soul  is 
fullest  of  these  will  have  the  most  and  best  to  say  to  the 
humanity  that  comes  to  him  for  instruction  and  inspiration. 

THE  REWARDS  OF  LITERARY  LABOR. 

Mr.  Thackeray,  in  his  notable  letter  to  the  editor  of  the 
"London  Evening  Chronicle,"  written  in  1850,  concerning 
the  dignity  of  literature,  says  that  every  European  state  but 
his  own,  the  English,  rewards  its  men  of  letters ;  and  he  even 
cites  America  as  more  considerate  in  this  regard  than  Great 
Britain.  "  If  Pitt  Crawley,"  he  says,  "  is  disappointed  at  not 
getting  a  ribbon  on  retiring  from  his  diplomatic  post  at  Pum- 
pernickel, if  General  O'Dowd  is  pleased  to  be  called  Sir  Hec- 
tor O'Dowd,  K.  C.  B.,  and  his  wife  at  being  denominated  My 
Lady  O'Dowd,  are  literary  men  to  be  the  only  persons  exempt 
from  vanity,  and  is  it  to  be  sin  in  them  to  court  honor  ?  " 

Probably  no  Englishman  who  has  lived  in  the  last  century 
cared  less  for  titles,  and  the  sort  of  honor  that  belongs  to 
them,  than  Thackeray.  His  plea  was  a  general  one  for  the 
literary  craft.  He  simply  intended  to  protest  that  if  any  lit- 
erary man  wanted  the  kind  of  reward  or  recognition  of  his 
work  which  a  ribbon  or  a  title  would  bestow,  he  had  as  good  a 
right  to  it  as  anybody — a  better  right  to  it,  indeed,  than  the 
average  or  usual  recipient  of  it.  And  he  was  right,  though  he 
chose  something  better,  as  literary  men  usually  do. 

In  looking  over  the  recent  volume  compiled  and  partly  fur- 


LITERA  TURE  AND  LITER  A  R  Y  MEN.  3  4 

nished  by  Mr.  Stoddard,  in  the  "  Bric-a-Brac  Series,"  we  find 
much  of  suggestion  on  this  great  subject  of  rewards  for  literary 
labor.  Thackeray  and  Dickens,  or  Dickens  and  Thackeray, — 
as  men  may  choose  to  order  their  coupling  of  the  two  great 
names, — were  what  may  be  called  well-rewarded  men.  They 
had  many  personal  friends  in  all  ranks  of  society.  They  were 
held  in  great  honor  and  admiration  by  multitudes  of  men  and 
women  whom  they  did  not  know.  They  had  princely  pay  for 
their  labor,  and  were  enabled  by  their  power  to  earn  money  to 
give  good  homes  to  their  wives  and  children.  Yet  neither  of 
them,  by  the  usages  of  English  society,  was  socially  among 
the  highest  class.  They  were  petted  and  patronized  person- 
ally, but  they  have  left  no  higher  social  position  for  their  chil- 
dren than  they  themselves  originally  held.  Wider  the  circle 
may  be,  but  its  plane  is  not  raised.  These  literary  men,  whose 
labor  was  one  of  the  highest  glories  of  the  realm,  who  carried 
untold  pleasures,  and  exquisite  culture,  and  pure  sentiment, 
and  fructifying  thought  into  every  hamlet  and  house  in  the 
kingdom,  were  not  the  social  equals  of  an  earl,  though  that 
earl  may  have  been, — as  many  an  earl  undoubtedly  has  been, — 
an  ass.  That  they  both  saw  the  injustice  of  this,  and  despised 
the  constitution  of  society  that  made  such  injustice  possible,  is 
not  to  be  doubted — thorough  Englishmen  as  both  of  them 
were;  and  so  thoroughly  must  they  have  seen  the  baselessness 
of  the  social  distinctions  which  placed  them  where  they  stood 
in  the  social  scale,  that  they  could  not  but  despise  the  titles 
and  ribbons  of  which  Mr.  Thackeray  spoke  in  his  letter.  The 
thought  that  the  Queen  of  England  can  delight  in  having  the 
works  of  her  great  novelists  in  her  private  apartments,  and  is 
shut  away  by  social  barriers  from  their  genial,  sparkling  and  fruit- 
ful society,  and  that  those  next  below  her  must  remain  with 
those  among  whom  they  were  born,  may  be  a  trial  to  them,— 


32  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

it  ought  to  be, — but  it  ought  not  to  disturb  the  men  whose 
society  is  so  foolishly  sacrificed. 

After  all,  the  matter  is  well  enough  as  it  is.  In  this  country 
it  is  particularly  so.  In  a  free  country  like  ours,  where  the 
social  lines  are  not  closely  drawn,  we  do  not  see  how  a  man 
can  claim  a  right  to  any  larger  domain  than  he  fairly  conquers. 
The  literary  man  who  complains  of  lack  of  popular  consider- 
ation and  social  reward  for  his  labor,  is,  by  rule,  the  man  who 
has  not  comprehended  the  wants  of  his  time,  and  has  simply 
sought  to  serve  himself.  To  complain  of  lack  of  public 
reward  for  the  service  of  one's  self  is  certainly  childish ;  yet, 
the  great  mass  of  literary  men  in  America  who  find  fault  with 
their  winnings  is  made  up  of  these.  Those  who  are  not  up  to 
their  time,  though  they  mean  well,  fail  of  necessity.  Those 
who  are  above  or  beyond  their  time  fail,  perhaps,  in  a  certain 
way,  but,  after  all,  the  world  knows  enough  to  know  who  they 
are,  and  accredits  them  often  with  more  than  belongs  to  them. 
Emerson  has  a  world  of  honor  from  men  who  do  not  pretend 
to  understand  him. 

So  we  come  back  to  the  proposition  that  a  man  has  no  right 
to  any  more  consideration  for  his  literary  labor  than,  in  a  fair, 
open  field  he  can  conquer. 

Every  literary  man,  by  virtue  of  his  constitution,  owes  a  duty 
to  his  generation  and  his  time ;  and  if,  comprehending  that 
duty,  he  performs  it  well,  he  has  no  stint  of  honor.  There  is 
no  man  around  whom  gathers  so  much  interest,  admiration, 
affection  and  respect  as  around  him  who  charms,  teaches,  and 
inspires  by  his  literary  work.  The  young  man  who  boasted 
that  he  once  saw  a  rail-road  train  passing,  in  one  car  of  which 
sat  Charles  Dickens,  and  who  felt  exalted  by  the  thought  that 
though  he  had  never  looked  upon  his  face,  he  had  seen  the 
car  that  held  him,  illustrates  the  enthusiastic  affection  in  which 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


33 


eminent  literary  men  are  held.  They  are  kings  by  right. 
Their  kingdom  may  not  be  strictly  of  this  world  of  titles,  and 
dignities,  and  palaces,  and  lands,  but  it  is  a  veritable  kingdom, 
which  holds  only  loyal  subjects.  The  literary  man  who  would 
not  rather  be  Walter  Scott  than  the  Napoleon  whom  he  de- 
scribed, or  Thackeray  than  the  Emperor  William,  or  Charles 
Dickens  than  the  Prince  of  Wales,  or  Mrs.  Browning  than  the 
Queen  of  England,  or  Washington  Irving  than  Gen.  Jackson, 
or  William  Cullen  Bryant  than  General  Grant,  is  a  disgrace  to 
his  craft,  undeserving  of  any  literary  reward,  and  incapable  of 
winning  one. 

This  admitted,  it  is  idle  to  talk  of  the  inadequacy  of  literary 
rewards,  so  far  as  the  social  and  personal  honors  of  the  world 
are  concerned.  They  are  abundant,  and  above  all  titular 
honors,  all  wealth,  all  official  position.  Mr.  Everett  is  remem- 
bered to-day,  not  as  our  minister  to  England,  but  as  an  orator. 
Mr.  Bancroft  retires  honorably  from  his  Prussian  mission ;  but 
Mr.  Bancroft,  the  historian,  has  conferred  more  honor  upon  his 
office  than  the  office  has  conferred  upon  him.  The  principle 
distinction  that  has  ever  come  to  the  Liverpool  consulate  has 
come  through  Mr.  Hawthorne's  occupation  of  it.  Names  like 
those  of  Franklin,  Adams,  and  Motley  are  those  almost  alone 
which  have  saved  the  bureaus  of  our  diplomatic  foreign  service 
from  absolute  contempt.  A  hundred  ordinary  politicians  come, 
go,  and  are  forgotten;  but  glory  lingers  around  the  chairs  once 
occupied  by  men  whom  office  could  not  honor. 

The  great  lack  of  reward  to  literary  labor  is  in  the  matter  of 
money.  Not  one  author  in  twenty  can  live  on  his  authorial 
earnings.  We  speak  of  this  country  of  cheap  books.  We  have 
altogether  too  many  men  who  are  still  drudging  for  the  bread 
that  feeds  themselves  and  their  families,  though  thay  have 
dor  e  good,  marketable  literary  work  all  their  lives.  Copyright 


34 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


is  contemptibly  small.  We  do  not  mean  that  publishers  make 
too  much,  but  that  the  books  are  sold  so  cheap  that  neither 
publishers  nor  authors  can  get  a  fair  living.  The  consumers 
of  books  must  remember  that  out  of  every  dollar  they  pay  for 
a  copyrighted  book,  the  writer  gets  but  ten  cents,  and  the  pub- 
lishers would  be  quite  willing,  as  a  rule,  to  share  the  losses  and 
gains  of  publication  with  the  authors.  If  copyright  were  double 
what  it  is,  authors  could  not  get  a  living  exclusively  by  author- 
ship. That  this  is  all  wrong,  is  undoubted.  That  it  ever  will 
be  right  until  we  have  an  international  copyright  law,  which 
will  do  away  with  the  competition  of  American  authors  with 
stolen  books,  we  do  not  believe.  When  this  wrong  is  righted, 
authors  will  have  nothing  left  to  complain  of. 

PROFESSIONAL  AND  LITERARY  INCOMES. 

The  clergyman,  the  lawyer,  the  physician,  the  editor,  the 
teacher,  and  the  writer  of  books,  in  order  to  excellence  in  their 
respective  professions,  are  all  obliged  to  go  through  the  same 
amount  of  preliminary  study.  It  costs  as  much  of  time,  money 
and  labor  to  thoroughly  fit  one  for  his  work  as  the  other;  and 
we  may  add  that  it  requires  just  as  much  talent  and  genius  to 
be  a  teacher  as  to  be  an  author,  to  be  an  editor  as  to  be  a  cler- 
gyman or  a  lawyer.  The  special  adaptation  of  natural  gifts 
and  dispositions  is  just  as  important  and  valuable  to  the  com- 
munity in  one  profession  as  in  another.  Each  requires  a  whole 
man,  who  shall  be  a  man  outside  of  his  special  work — a  man 
of  culture,  large  acquaintance  with  men  and  things,  a  well- 
furnished  and  cleanly  working  intellect,  a  high  character,  and 
superlative  devotion  to  the  work  from  which  he  wins  his  living. 
In  the  nature  of  things,  in  the  character  of  the  work  done,  and 
in  the  amount  and  kind  of  preparation  required,  there  is  no 
reason  why  one  should  be  better  paid  than  the  other ;  yet  there 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


35 


is  no  field  of  human  effort  which  presents  a  wider  variety  or 
contrariety  of  pecuniary  rewards  than  that  presented  by  profes- 
sional and  literary  labor. 

There  are  two  forms  of  income  attached  to  this  variety  of 
work ;  viz. :  that  which  arises  from  salaries,  and  that  which 
arises  from  fees.  The  former  is  fixed  by  the  community  for 
which  the  work  is  done,  and  the  latter  by  those  who  do  the 
work.  The  salaried  man  enters  the  market  and  sells  his 
services  at  the  highest  rate  which  they  will  command  in  com- 
petition with  others.  The  man  of  fees  combines  with  his 
brethren  to  fix  a  compensation  for  his  services,  which  compels 
the  community  to  take  them  at  his  valuation  or  to  do  without 
them.  To  say  that  the  lawyer  and  the  physician  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  all  the  other  professions,  is  simply  to  repeat  a  no- 
torious fact.  The  lawyer  and  the  physician  who  are  thoroughly 
prepared  for  and  fitted  to  their  work  can,  and  do,  get  rich. 
The  clergyman,  the  teacher,  the  editor,  and  the  author  cannot, 
and  do  not,  get  rich  by  their  work.  The  brightest  author  in 
America,  though  he  produce  books  of  universal  acceptation, 
can  never  get  rich;  and  hardly  one  author  in  one  hundred  can 
realize  enough  from  his  labor  at  the  present  rates  of  copyright 
to  rear  a  family  in  comfort.  The  teacher  gets  just  enough  to 
live  on,  and  no  more,  while  the  clergyman  and  the  hired  editor, 
save  in  rare  instances,  are  men  who  are  obliged  to  practice  the 
most  rigid  economy  in  order  to  live  within  their  income. 

We  are  not  among  those  who  believe  that  the  salaried  man 
gets  enough  for  his  work.  We  should  be  glad  to  see  him 
better  paid,  in  all  departments  of  his  labor.  It  so  happens 
that  he  works  at  the  very  foundations  of  society,  and  has  hi? 
office  of  ministry  all  through  its  superstructure.  He  has  to  do 
with  the  morality,  the  education,  the  information,  the  opinion, 
and  the  culture  of  the  social  mass.  Take  away  his  work,  and 


36  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

society  would  degenerate  into  barbarism.  The  importance  of 
his  work  cannot  be  calculated.  He  is  the  inspirer,  instructor, 
and  conservator  of  our  civilization ;  and  he  is  as  powerless  to- 
day to  win  a  competence  for  his  old  age,  while  all  around  him 
are  getting  rich,  and  receiving  the  results  of  his  labor,  as  if  he 
were  a  child.  The  superannuated  clergyman  ekes  out  his  life 
in  the  humblest  way ;  the  exhausted  teacher  peddles  books  or 
drifts  into  some  petty  clerkship;  the  editor  breaks  down  or 
becomes  a  hack;  and  the  author  writes  himself  out,  or  runs 
into  drivel  that  wins  the  scantiest  pay  and  destroys  whatever 
reputation  he  may  have  won  when  his  powers  were  at  their 
best  productive  activity.  There  may  be  exceptions  to  this 
rule ;  but  that  this  is  the  rule  is  beyond  dispute. 

The  men  of  fees  are  the  physician  and  the  lawyer.  One 
has  to  do  with  the  physical  diseases  of  men,  and  the  other 
with  their  legal  quarrels  and  their  crimes.  We  do  not,  in  the 
slightest  degree,  disparage  the  usefulness  of  these  two  classes 
of  professional  men :  we  simply  say  that  the  better  the  other 
classes  perform  their  work,  the  less  these  have  to  do.  They 
live  upon  the  moral  and  physical  evils  of  the  country;  and 
there  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  their  calling  for  their  ad- 
vantage in  pecuniary  rewards  over  the  other  classes.  There  is 
no  reason  why  a  general  practitioner  of  medicine,  or  a  special- 
ist in  medicine  or  surgery,  should  sit  in  his  office,  and  take  in  a 
single  fee,  for  a  service  that  costs  him  fifteen  minutes  of  time,  a 
sum  equal  to  that  which  a  teacher  or  a  clergyman  works  all  day 
to  win.  There  is  no  reason  why  a  physician,  called  into  a 
house  in  consultation,  should  charge  for  his  service  a  sum  that 
it  takes  an  editor  two  days  of  hard  work  to  earn.  There  is  no 
good  reason  for  the  setting  of  a  price  upon  a  surgical  opera- 
tion, performed  in  half  an  hour,  that  the  most  successful  au- 
thor's copyright  cannot  pay  in  a  month.  It  is  simple,  inexcusa- 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


37 


ble  and  outrageous  extortion.  If  we  go  from  the  physician  to 
the  lawyer,  we  find  still  higher  fees.  The  simplest  work,  such 
as  searching  titles,  work  that  only  demands  accuracy,  and  is 
usually  done  by  clerks,  commands  a  price  that  few  men  can  af- 
ford to  pay,  while  larger  work  involves  fees  that  are  startling 
and  stupendous.  Some  of  the  incomes  of  lawyers  in  this  city 
are  large  enough  to  swallow  up  the  salaries  of  a  dozen,  or 
twice  that  number,  of  salaried  professional  men.  The  way  in 
which  the  people  are  bled  in  the  process  of  securing  justice  is 
often  most  shameful.  So  shameful  is  it,  that  thousands  sub- 
mit to  wrong  rather  than  go  into  any  litigation  whatever.  Peo- 
ple dread  getting  into  a  lawyer's  hands  as  they  dread  getting 
into  the  hands  of  a  New  York  hackman.  There  are  honora- 
ble and  reasonable  lawyers,  without  doubt, — men  in  whose 
honor  we  may  implicitly  trust ;  but  there  are  so  many  extor- 
tioners among  them  that  they  have  given  a  bad  flavor  to  the 
profession.  There  are  shysters  and  scamps  enough  in  New 
York,  attached  to  the  profession,  to  sink  it,  were  it  not  that 
there  are  noble  men  in  it  who  are  unpurchasable.  But  lawyer's 
fees  are  notoriously  large  as  a  rule,  and  altogether  outweigh 
the  salaries  of  the  salaried  professional  men. 

Perhaps  the  fees  the  community  is  obliged  to  pay  is  a  fitting 
punishment  for  the  wrong  it  inflicts  upon  .its  salaried  pro- 
fessional servants.  There  ought  to  be  some  remedy  for  both 
evils.  Where  it  is  to  be  found,  we  do  not  know.  The  physi- 
cian has  some  apology  for  getting  high  fees  of  those  who  can 
pay,  because  he  is  obliged  to  do  so  much  for  the  poor  who 
cannot  pay;  but  the  lawyer,  as  a  rule,  does  not  undertake 
a  case  which  promises  him  no  remuneration.  He  "goes  in"  for 
money ;  and  there  ought  to  be  some  law  which  will  enable  the 
poor  man  to  get  justice  without  financial  ruin.  There  is  at 
least  no  good  reason  why  one  set  of  professional  men  should 


3  8  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

half  starve  while  another  gorges  itself  upon  fees  that  bring 
wealth  and  luxury.  That  fees  are  too  large  and  salaries  too 
small  has  become  a  popular  conviction,  which  can  only  be 
removed  by  a  reform  in  both  directions,  that  shall  bring  lit- 
erary and  professional  men  equivalent  rewards. 

LITERARY  HINDERANCES. 

There  was  something  very  impressive  and  suggestive  in  what 
Mr.  Stedman  once  printed  on  the  embarassments  of  Hood's 
literary  life.  The  brave,  cheerful,  mirth-provoking  man,  spread- 
ing innocent  pleasure  all  over  a  realm  from  his  bed  of  pain, 
coining  his  wasting  blood  into  pence  with  which  to  buy  bread 
for  himself  and  his  family,  presents  to  the  imagination  an 
object  at  once  pitiful  and  inspiring.  Yet  the  literary  world  is 
full  of  spectacles  only  less  touching.  Three-quarters  of  the 
literary  men  and  women  of  the  present  time  are  loaded  down 
with  cares  that  seem  to  forbid  the  free  development  of  their 
genius,  and  deny  to  them  the  power  to  do  their  best  possible 
work.  The  painter,  with  the  greatest  ambition  and  the  noblest 
genius,  is  obliged  to  come  down  to  what  he  calls  his  "pot- 
boilers ; "  and  most  literary  men  and  women  do  the  same. 
They  do  work  in  which  they  take  no  pleasure,  simply  because 
it  is  necessary  to  win  them  bread  and  clothing.  Even  this 
work  they  do  under  a  pressure  that  is  sometimes  degrading, 
and  some  of  them  are  obliged  to  do  so  much  of  it  that,  after 
a  time,  the  spontaneous,  creative  impulse  dies  out  of  them, 
and  they  become  disheartened  and  demoralized  literary  hacks. 

But  suppose  the  case  were  as  we  would  like  to  have  it. 
Suppose  that  when  genius  should  be  discovered  in  any  man, 
or  woman,  a  competent  pension  were  provided  at  once  for  his 
or  her  maintenance,  so  that  all  common  cares  could  be  forever 
set  aside,  and  the  song  be  sung,  and  the  story  be  told  in  per- 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


39 


feet  freedom,  and  at  perfect  leisure.  Suppose  every  writer 
could  have  Byron's  wealth,  or  Tennyson's  competence,  or 
Dickens's  literary  income,  would  it  be  better  for  the  world 
thus,  or  even  better  for  literature  ?  It  is  an  open  question, 
which  it  would  be  well  for  all  repiners  to  examine.  Would 
Byron  have  been  a  better  or  a  worse  writer  with  poverty? 
Would  not  Tennyson  have  had  more  for  the  great  world 
of  struggling  and  sorrowing  life  with  smaller  possibilities  of 
self-seclusion?  Were  not  Dickens's  wide-mouthed  wants,  nat- 
ural and  artificial,  among  the  productive  motives  which  have 
given  to  the  world  the  most  remarkable  series  of  novels  that 
the  English  language  holds  among  its  treasures  ? 

If  the  truth  must  be  confessed,  the  literary  men  and  women 
of  the  world  can  hardly  be  trusted  with  wealth,  when  we  re- 
member that  literature  has  no  uses  save  as  it  ministers  to  the 
comfort,  the  pure  pleasure,  the  strength,  the  elevation  and  the 
spiritual  culture  of  the  race.  To  be  placed  beyond  the  com- 
mon needs  and  the  common  struggles  of  men,  is  to  be  placed 
beyond  their  sympathies, — is  to  be  placed  outside  of  a  realm 
of  knowledge  which  all  must  possess  whose  function  is  that  of 
artistic  ministry. 

That  the  operation  of  this  law  brings  individual  hardship 
may  not  be  questioned,  but  we  cannot  afford  to  lose  it  because 
of  this.  Tennyson  could  never  have  sung  "  The  Song  of  the 
Shirt,"  or  "  The  Bridge  of  Sighs."  It  took  a  man  to  do  those 
things  who  had  lived  close  to  London  life,  and  who,  in  his  own" 
person  and  fortunes,  had  shared  in  the  trials  and  tragedies  of 
its  struggling  multitudes.  Cowper  is  dearest  to  those  whose 
lives  have  been  clouded,  and  sings  to  them  by  a  divine  com- 
mission. We  should  have  lost  our  Burns  if  he  had  been  born 
in  a  palace,  and  reared  in  luxury.  Mrs.  Browning,  like  the 
lark,  would  have  sung  all  her  songs  in  the  sky,  beyond  the 


4o  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

hearing  of  the  common  ear,  if  she  had  not  been  bound  to  the 
earth  by  the  chain  of  pain.  Even  Shakespeare,  in  his  most 
wonderful  plays,  "meant  business."  How  true,  and  sweet,  and 
pure  remains  the  spirit  that  still  shines  under  the  Quaker  brown, 
and  waits  for  translation  within  the  consecrated  cottage  of 
Amesbury !  God  made  Whittier  poor,  that  every  son  of  want, 
and  every  victim  of  wrong  should  have  a  sympathizing  and 
ministering  brother.  Uncounted  and  inestimable  literary  suc: 
cesses  have  been  founded  upon  a  knowledge  of,  and  sympathy 
with,  the  world,  only  won  and  only  attainable  by  sharing  that 
world's  homely  needs  and  homely  work. 

Sometimes,  however,  the  conviction  comes  to  the  literary 
worker  that  he  is  having  something  too  much  of  drudgery. 
There  are  undoubtedly  cases  of  this  kind,  but,  after  all,  we 
cannot  afford  to  lose  the  test  which  work  for  bread  furnishes  in 
deciding  upon  the  genuineness  of  a  literary  man's  mission. 
He  who  becomes  soured  by  toil  shows  that  he  is  not  fit  for 
prosperity,  and  cannot  be  trusted  with  it.  He  who  makes  the 
best  of  his  conditions,  and  bends  them  all  to  the  service  of  his 
art ;  who  keeps  a  good  conscience  in  all  his  work,  and  makes 
men  better  and  happier  in  winning  the  bread  for  himself  and 
his  dependents ;  who  learns  to  love  his  kind  while  sharing  their 
toils,  and  to  serve  his  God  in  serving  them,  is  the  man  whose 
name  is  safe  in  the  keeping  of  his  country.  The  man,  on  the 
contrary,  who  takes  his  lot  with  discontent ;  who  ceases  to  do 
good  work  because  he  must  work  or  starve,  and  becomes  will- 
ing at  last  to  do  any  work  that  offers,  writing  on  any  required 
side  of  any  prescribed  question,  shows  himself  made  of  poor 
material — unworthy,  under  any  circumstances,  to  hold  a  high 
place  in  the  regard  of  his  countrymen.  If  the  ideal,  literary 
life  of  freedom  and  leisure  were  best  for  the  mass  of  literary 
workers,  they  would,  doubtless,  have  it.  If  the  pet  notion  of 


LITER  A  TURE  AND  LITER  A  R  Y  MEN.  4  , 

the  modern  dilettanti,  that  beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being, 
and  that  the  artist  has  no  mission  which  does  not  end  in  his 
art,  were  sound,  we  should  find  literary  conditions  adjusted  to 
it.  But  the  artist  is  a  minister — a  servant ;  and,  that  he  may 
learn  his  duty  to  his  race,  he  must  mingle  with  it,  work  with  it, 
weep  with  it.  Only  thus  can  he  know  how  to  charm  it  with 
story,  and  inspire  it  with  song. 

THE  READING  OF  PERIODICALS. 

It  is  lamented  by  many  that  the  reading  of  periodicals  has 
become  not  only  universal,  but  that  it  absorbs  all  the  time  of 
those  who  read  them.  It  is  supposed  that,  in  consequence  of 
these  two  facts,  the  quiet  and  thorough  study  of  well-written 
books — books  which  deal  with  their  subjects  systematically  and 
exhaustively — has  been  forsaken.  As  a  consequence  of  this 
fact,  it  is  farther  supposed  that  readers  only  get  a  superficial 
and  desultory  knowledge  of  the  things  they  study,  and  that, 
although  their  knowledge  covers  many  fields,  they  become 
nothing  better  than  smatterers  in  any. 

We  think  these  conclusions  are  hardly  sustained  by  the  large 
array  of  facts  relating  to  them.  We  doubt  whether  the  market 
for  good  books  was  ever  any  better  than  it  is  now.  We  have 
no  statistics  on  the  subject,  but  our  impression  is,  that  through 
the  universal  diffusion  of  periodical  literature,  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  books  conveyed  and  advertised  by  it,  the  book  trade 
has  been  rather  helped  than  harmed.  It  has  multiplied  readers 
and  excited  curiosity  and  interest  touching  all  literature. 
There  are  hundreds  of  good  books  which  would  never  reach 
the  world  but  for  the  introduction  and  commendation  of  the 
periodical  •  and  books  are  purchased  now  more  intelligently 
than  they  ever  were  before.  The  librarians  will  tell  us,  too,  that 
they  find  no  falling  off  in  their  labors;  and  we  doubt  whether 


4  2  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

our  scholars  would  be  willing  to  confess  that  they  are  less 
studious  than  formerly.  Science  was  never  more  active  in  its 
investigations  than  now;  discovery  was  never  pushed  more 
efficiently  and  enthusiastically,  and  thought  and  speculation 
were  never  more  busy  concerning  all  the  great  subjects  that 
affect  the  race. 

No,  the  facts  do  not  sustain  the  conclusions  of  those  who 
decry  the  periodical;  and  when  we  consider  how  legitimately 
and  necessarily  it  has  grown  out  of  the  changes  which  progress 
has  introduced,  we  shall  conclude  that  they  cannot  do  so.  The 
daily  newspaper,  in  its  present  splendid  estate,  is  a  child  of  the 
telegraph  and  the  rail-car.  As  soon  as  it  became  possible  for 
a  man  to  sit  at  his  breakfast-table  and  read  of  all  the  important 
events  which  took  place  in  the  whole  world  the  day  before,  a 
want  was  born  which  only  the  daily  paper  could  supply.  If  a 
man,  absorbed  in  business  and  practical  affairs,  has  time  only 
to  read  the  intelligence  thus  furnished,  and  the  comments  upon 
it  and  the  discussions  growing  out  of  it,  of  course  his  reading 
stops  there;  but  what  an  incalculable  advantage  in  his  business 
affairs  has  this  hasty  survey  given  him !  If  he  has  more  time 
than  this,  and  has  a  love  of  science,  the  periodical  brings  to 
him  every  week  or  month  the  latest  investigations  and  their 
results,  and  enables  him  to  keep  pace  with  his  time.  If  the 
work  of  the  various  active  scientists  of  the  day  were  only  em- 
bodied in  elaborate  books,  he  would  never  see  and  could  never 
read  one  of  them.  In  the  periodical  all  the  scientific  men  of  the 
world  meet.  They  learn  there  just  what  each  man  is  doing, 
and  are  constant  inspirers  and  correctors  of  each  other,  while 
all  the  interested  world  studies  them  and  keeps  even-headed 
with  them.  A  ten-days'  run  from  Liverpool  brings  to  this 
country  an  installment  of  the  scientific  labor  of  all  Europe,  and 
there  is  no  possible  form  in  which  this  can  be  gathered  up  and 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


43 


scattered  except  that  of  the  periodical.  In  truth,  we  do  not 
know  of  any  class  of  men  who  would  be  more  disastrously  af- 
fected by  a  suspension  of  periodical  literature  than  those  who 
have  particularly  decried  it — the  scholars  and  the  scientists. 

Within  the  last  twenty  years,  not  only  have  the  means  of  com- 
munication been  incalculably  increased,  but  the  domain  of 
knowledge  has  been  very  greatly  enlarged;  and  the  fact  is  pa- 
tent that  periodical  literature  has  been  developed  in  the  same 
proportion.  It  has  grown  out  of  the  new  necessities,  and  must 
ultimately  arrange  itself  by  certain  laws.  At  present,  it  is  in  a 
degree  of  confusion;  but  at  last  the  daily  paper  will  announce 
facts,  the  scientific  journal  will  describe  discoveries  and  proc- 
esses, the  weekly  paper  will  be  the  medium  of  popular  discussion, 
the  magazine  and  review  will  furnish  the  theatre  of  the  thinker 
and  the  literary  artist,  and  the  book,  sifting  all — facts,  processes, 
thoughts  and  artistic  fabrics,  and  crystallizations  of  thought — 
will  record  all  that  is  worthy  of  preservation,  to  enter  perma- 
nently into  the  life  and  literature  of  the  world.  This  is  the  tend- 
ency at  the  present  time,  although  the  aim  may  not  be  intel- 
ligent and  definite,  or  the  end  clearly  seen.  Each  class  of  period- 
icals has  its  office  in  evolving  from  the  crude  facts  of  the  every- 
day history  of  politics,  religion,  morals,  society  and  science  those 
philosophic  conclusions  and  artistic  creations  that  make  up  the 
solid  literature  of  the  country;  and  this  office  will  be  better  de- 
fined as  the  years  go  by. 

We  do  not  see  that  it  is  anything  against  the  magazine  that 
it  has  become  the  medium  by  which  books  of  an  ephemeral 
nature  find  their  way  to  the  public.  The  novel,  almost  uni- 
versally, makes  its  first  appearance  as  a  serial.  Macdonald, 
Collins,  Reade,  George  Eliot,  Mrs.  Stowe,  Mrs.  Whitney,  Trol- 
lope — in  fact,  all  the  principal  novelists — send  their  produc- 
tions to  the  public  through  the  magazines ;  and  it  is  certainly 


44 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


better  to  distribute  the  interest  of  these  through  the  year  than 
to  devour  them  en  masse.  They  come  to  the  public  in  this 
way  in  their  cheapest  form,  and  find  ten  readers  where  in  the 
book  form  they  would  find  one.  They  are  read,  too,  as 
serials,  mingled  with  a  wider  and  more  valuable  range  of  liter- 
ature, as  they  always  should  be  read.  Anything  is  good  which 
prevents  literary  condiments  from  being  adopted  as  literary 
food. 

If  the  fact  still  remains  that  there  are  multitudes  who  will 
read  absolutely  nothing  but  periodical  literature,  where  is  the 
harm  ?  This  is  a  busy  world,  and  the  great  multitude  cannot 
purchase  large  libraries.  Ten  or  fifteen  dollars'  worth  of  peri- 
odicals places  every  working  family  in  direct  relations  with  the 
great  sources  of  current  intelligence  and  thought,  and  illumi- 
nates their  home  life  as  no  other  such  expenditure  can  do.  The 
masses  have  neither  the  money  to  buy  books  nor  the  leisure  to 
read  them.  The  periodical  becomes,  then,  the  democratic 
form  of  literature.  It  is  the  intellectual  food  of  the  people. 
It  stands  in  the  very  front  rank  of  the  agents  of  civilization, 
and  in  its  way,  directly  and  indirectly,  is  training  up  a  gener- 
ation of  book -readers.  It  is  the  pioneer :  the  book  will  come 
later.  In  the  meantime,  it  becomes  all  those  who  provide 
periodicals  for  -the  people  to  take  note  of  the  fact,  that  their 
work  has  been  proved  to  be  a  good  one  by  the  growing  de- 
mand for  a  higher  style  of  excellence  in  the  materials  they  fur- 
nish. The  day  of  trash  and  padding  is  past,  or  rapidly  pas- 
sing. The  popular  magazine  of  to-day  is  such  a  magazine  as 
the  world  never  saw  before;  and  the  popular  magazine  of 
America  is  demonstrably  better  than  any  popular  magazine  in 
the  world.  We  are  naturally  more  familiar  with  this  class  of 
periodical  literature  than  any  other,  and  we  make  the  state- 
ment without  qualification  or  reservation.  That  it  is  truly 


LITER  A  TURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN.  45 

educating  its  readers  is  proved  by  the  constant  demand  for  its 
own  improvement. 

THE  MORALS  OF  JOURNALISM. 

In  the  discussions  of  journalism  which  have  been  started  by 
editorial  conventions  and  the  establishment  of  chairs  of  jour- 
nalism in  one  or  two  academic  institutions,  it  is  well  not  to 
forget  the  matter  of  morals.  A  great  deal  of  indignation  has 
been  meted  out  to  those  presses  which  publish  quack  adver- 
tisements, calculated  to  encourage  vice  and  crime.  In  this 
thing,  a  gnat  is  strained  at  that  a  camel  may  be  swallowed ; 
for,  almost  without  exception,  the  papers  which  denounce  and 
refuse  to  publish  these  advertisements,  take  endless  pains  to 
spread  before  their  readers  the  details  of  the  crimes  which  the 
advertisements  are  supposed  to  engender  or  encourage.  Mur- 
ders, suicides,  seductions,  adulteries,  burglaries,  thefts,  scandals 
— all  disagreeable  and  disgraceful  things — detailed  histories  of 
events  which  appeal  to  prurient  tastes  and  a  morbid  desire  for 
coarse  and  brutal  excitements — are  not  these  the  leading  ma- 
terial of  a  great  number  of  our  daily  papers  ?  We  may  be 
mistaken,  but  we  believe  that  there  is  no  department  of  the 
world's  news  given  with  such  exhaustive  particularity  as  that 
which  relates  to  vice  and  crime.  If  this  be  doubted,  let  the 
first  paper  at  hand  be  taken  up,  and  the  fact  will,  we  think,  be 
determined  as  we  apprehend  it.  We  know  that  in  many 
papers  the  remedial  agencies  of  society — the  churches,  schools, 
social  conventions — private  and  organized  charities — beg  for 
space  that  is  freely  accorded  to  the  record  of  a  petty  theft  or 
a  husband's  or  wife's  infidelity.  That  which  will  make  a  spicy 
paragraph  is  chosen  before  that  which  will  make  a  healthy 
one. 

Nor  is  this  all.     The  crimes  which  are  thus  spread  before 


46 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


the.  public  for  its  daily  food  are  often  treated  like  anything  but 
crimes.  Some  of  our  papers  have  a  way  of  doing  up  their 
columns  of  local  crime  as  if  it  were  all  a  joke.  The  writer 
makes  an  ingenious  jest  of  everything  he  is  called  upon  to 
notice.  The  poor  women  who  are  lost  to  virtue  and  society, 
with  hell  within  them  and  before  them,  furnish  grateful  themes 
for  the  reporter's  careless  pleasantries.  Their  arraignment, 
their  trial,  their  sentence,  their  appearance,  their  words,  are 
chronicled  in  unfeeling  slang,  with  the  intent  to  excite  laugh- 
ter. That  which  to  a  good  man  or  woman  is  infinitely  pathetic 
is  made  to  appear  a  matter  to  be  laughed  at,  or  to  be  passed 
over  as  of  no  account.  A  case  of  infidelity  in  the  marriage 
relation,  involving  the  destruction  of  the  peace  of  families,  the 
disgrace  of  children,  and  the  irremediable  shame  of  the  parties 
primarily  concerned,  comes  to  us  labeled :  "  rich  develop- 
ments." The  higher  the  life  involved  and  the  purer  the  repu- 
tation, the  "richer"  the  "developments,"  always.  Nothing 
pleases  our  jesting  reporter  like  large  game.  A  clergyman 
is  the  best,  next  a  lay  member,  and  then  any  man  or  woman 
who  may  be  in  a  high  social  position.  "  Crime  in  high  life  "  is 
a  particularly  grateful  dish  for  those  to  serve  up  who  cater  for 
the  prurient  public.  It  is  impossible  not  to  conclude  that  the 
men  who  write  these  items  and  articles  delight  in  them,  and 
that  the  men  who  publish  them  regard  them  only  with  relation 
to  their  mercantile  value.  We  know  of  nothing  more  heart- 
less than  the  way  in  which  criminals  and  crime  are  treated  by 
a  portion  of  the  daily  press,  and  nothing  more  demoralizing  to 
the  public  and  to  those  who  are  guilty  of  trifling  with  them 
under  the  license  of  the  reporter's  pen.  It  is  a  bad,  bad  busi- 
ness. It  is  an  evil  which  every  paper  claiming  to  be  respect- 
able ought  to  cut  up,  root  and  branch.  So  long  as  crime 
is  treated  lightly  it  is  encouraged.  So  long,  too,  as  the  edify- 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


47 


ing,  informing,  remedial  and  purifying  agencies  of  the  world 
are  subordinated  in  the  public  notice  to  the  records  of  vice 
and  crime,  simply  because  they  are  less  startling  or  spicy,  it  is 
nonsense  to  talk  about  quack  advertisements,  and  a  parade  of 
mock  virtue  which  deserves  both  to  be  pitied  and  laughed  at. 

The  daily  paper  has  now  become  a  visitor  in  every  family 
of  ordinary  intelligence.  It  has  become  the  daily  food  of 
children  and  youth  all  over  our  country,  and  it  ought  never  to 
hold  a  record  which  would  naturally  leave  an  unwholesome 
effect  upon  their  minds.  If  crime  is  recorded,  it  should  be 
recorded  as  crime,  and  with  a  conscientious  exclusion  of  all 
details  that  the  editor  would  exclude  were  he  called  upon  to 
tell  the  story  to  his  boy  upon  his  knee,  or  to  his  grown-up 
daughter  sitting  at  his  side.  The  way  in  which  nastiness  and 
beastliness  are  advertised  in  criminal  reports  is  abominable. 
It  is  not  necessary :  it  is  not  on  any  account  desirable.  A 
thousand  things  of  greater  moment  and  of  sweeter  import  pass 
unnoticed  by  the  press  every  day.  The  apology  that  the  press 
must  be  exact,  impartial,  faithful,  literal,  etc.,  is  a  shabby  one. 
A  press  is  never  impartial,  when,  by  the  predominance  it  gives 
to  crime  in  its  reports,  it  conveys  the  impression  that  crime  is 
the  most  important  thing  to  be  reported,  when,  in  truth,  it  is 
the  least  important.  Its  records  do  not  hinder  crime,  do  not 
nourish  virtue,  do  not  advance  intelligence,  do  not  purify 
youth,  do  not  build  up  the  best  interests  of  society ;  and  the 
absorption  of  the  columns  of  the  public  press  by  them  is  a 
stupendous  moral  nuisance  that  ought  to  be  abated'. 

We  do  not  expect  the  press  to  be  very  much  in  advance  of 
the  people,  either  in  morality  or  intelligence.  It  is  quite  as 
much  the  outgrowth  as  the  leader  of  our  civilization,  but  it 
ought  to  be  an  emanation  from  the  best  American  spirit 
and  culture  and  not  the  worst.  We  shall  have,  probably,  so 


48  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

long  as  crime  exists,  professional  scavengers  who  follow  in  its 
way  to  glean  and  gorge  its  un cleanness.  We  have  such  now, 
and  a  beastly  brood  who  glean  after  them  even;  but  why 
a  press  claiming  to  be  respectable  should  deem  it  its  duty 
to  assist  in  their  dirty  work  surpasses  our  comprehension.  We 
repeat — it  is  not  necessary :  it  is  not  on  any  account  desirable. 

LORD  LYTTON. 

One  of  the  most  striking  and  memorable  statements  made 
by  George  MacDonald,  in  his  lecture  on  Robert  Burns,  was, 
that  the  first  grand  requisite  of  a  poet  is  a  heart.  No  mat- 
ter how  brilliant  a  man's  intellect  may  be,  no  matter  how  high 
and  fine  his  culture,  no  matter  how  cunning  and  careful  his 
art,  if  he  have  not  a  heart  that  brings  him  not  only  into  sym- 
pathy with  his  kind,  but  with  all  life  of  plant  and  animal,  and 
all  life  of  God  as  it  breathes  through,  and  is  manifested  in,  in- 
animate nature,  the  essential  qualification  of  the  poet  is  want- 
ing. This  proposition  may  stand  as  a  canon  of  criticism  by 
right  of  its  own  self-evident  truthfulness,  no  less  than  by  the 
testimony  of  all  liferary  history.  A  thousand  brilliant  men 
have  risen  and  passed  away,  attracting  wide  attention  while 
they  lived,  but  warming  and  fructifying  no  mind  by  their  light, 
and  expiring  at  last  like  a  burnt-out  star,  leaving  no  trace  in 
the  sky.  So  near  the  earth  were  they,  that  their  light  failed  at 
once  when  the  fountain  failed,  while  many  a  lesser  star,  by 
burning  nearer  heaven,  has  been  able  to  send  down  its  rays 
for  centuries  after  its  fires  were  extinguished. 

Lord  Lytton  had  what  may  be  called  a  very  successful  liter- 
ary life,  and,  politically  and  socially,  was  a'  power  in  his  day 
and  generation.  He  had  wealth,  he  had  position,  he  had  a 
marvelous  culture,  he  had  fame,  he  had  great  industry,  he  held 
the  curious  eye  and  the  attentive  ear  of  the  world,  he  had  an 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


49 


imperious  ambition,  he  had  something  more  than  talent, — 
gifts  which  only  needed  the  talismanic  touch  of  love  to  make 
them  genius, — he  had  everything  but  the  one  thing  needful  to 
make  him  a  poet.  That  one  needful  thing  was  a  heart.  No 
man  ever  accused  or  suspected  him  of  possessing  anything 
that  could  bear  so  precious  a  name.  His  neighbors  tell  us 
that  he  was  a  bad  man ;  his  wife  affirms  the  same  fact ;  and 
all  that  he  has  left  to  us  of  his  enormous  literary  work  sustains 
their  personal  testimony.  Marvelous  jewelry  of  thought  and 
fancy  has  he  bequeathed  to  us — beautiful  stones  in  beautiful 
settings — but  there  is  no  blood  in  his  rubies :  there  is  no 
heaven  in  his  sapphires ;  and  all  his  diamonds  are  "  off  color." 
He  has  a  place  in  history ;  his  works  stand  in  long  rows  upon 
many  a  library  shelf  in  his  own  and  other  lands ;  but  Lord 
Lytton  is  dead,  and  his  works  are  nearly  so.  They  enter  no 
more  into  the  life  of  the  world.  They  never  did  enter  into 
the  life  of  the  world  as  a  beneficent  power.  Were  it  not  for 
two  or  three  plays  which  still  hold  to  the  boards,  he,  with  all 
his  works,  would  be  as  dead  to-day  as  Julius  Caesar. 

Simple  Bobby  Burns,  with  morals  hardly  less  offensive  than 
his  of  whom  we  write,  goes  singing  down  the  centuries,  and 
making  music  through  the  silence  that  shrouds  the  memory  of 
our  titled  litterateur.  It  is  not  because  he  was  good,  or  pure, 
or  true  even  to  himself,  but  because  he  was  in  sympathy  with 
life,  and  did  not  sit  and  sing,  poised  in  the  superb  selfishness 
from  which  Lord  Lytton  addressed  the  world.  He  loved 
nature,  he  loved  mankind,  he  entered  sympathetically  into 
human  trial  and  trouble;  he  hated  oppression,  he  despised 
cant,  he  respected  and  defended  manhood;  and  with  all  his 
weaknesses,  over  which  he  mourned  and  with  which  he 
struggled,  he  revered  Christian  goodness.  The  high  and  the 
numble  recognize  him  as  a  brother.  In  brief,  he  had  a  heart, 
4 


So  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

and  without  that  heart  all-  his  wonderful  gifts  would  have 
availed  him  nothing.  Without  that  hearf,  and  its  manifesta- 
tion in  song,  his  name  would  long  since  have  been  forgotten, 
and  the  poetry  he  left  would  have  been  swept  away  among 
the  vulgar  trash  of  earlier  and  coarser  times. 

The  same  thing  may  be  said,  only  less  emphatically,  of 
Dickens.  The  personal  character  of  Dickens  can  hardly  be 
regarded  as  admirable,  even  by  those  who  loved  him  most ;  yet 
he  had  a  heart  which  brought  him  into  sympathy  with  all  those 
phases  of  humanity  which  were  intellectually  interesting  to  him. 
He  loved  the  rascals  whom  he  painted,  and  enjoyed  the  soci- 
ety of  the  weakest  men  and  women  of  his  pages ;  and  it  is  this 
sympathy  which  gives  immortality  to  his  novels.  Pickwick  and 
David  Copperfield  are  as  fresh  to-day  as  when  they  were  writ- 
ten, and  are  sure  to  be  read  by  many  generations  yet  to  come ; 
yet  the  learning,  culture,  and  position  of  the  man — his  gifts 
and  acquirements  and  art — were  all  inferior  to  those  of  Lord 
Lytton.  His  superiority  was  in  his  heart  and  his  sympathy, 
and  on  these  he  stands  far  above  his  titled  contemporary  in 
the  popular  regard.  Bulwer  is  a  name  whose  home  is  in  cata- 
logues and  biographical  dictionaries.  Dickens  is  a  man  whom 
the  people  love.  One  is  a  memory ;  the  other  a  living  and 
abiding  presence. 

No  poet  or  novelist  can  greatly  benefit  the  world  who  does  not 
become  the  object  of  popular  affection;  and  this  popular  affec- 
tion cannot  be  secured  without  the  manifestation  of  sympathy. 
There  was  no  lack  of  power  in  Bulwer,  but  there  was  a  lack 
of  that  quality  which  was  necessary  to  bring  him  inside  the 
better  sympathies  of  human  nature.  No  art  emanating  from 
supreme  selfishness  can  ever  command  a  permanent  place  in 
the  world.  Heartless  art  is  loveless  art,  useless  art,  dead  art. 
Fine  art  without  fine  feeling  is  a  rose  without  fragrance. 


LIT  ERA  TURE  A  ND  LITER  A  R  V  MEN.  5 1 

Poetry  without  sympathy  bears  the  same  relation  to  true 
poetry  that  the  music  of  the  orchestrion,  turned  by  a  water- 
wheel,  bears  to  that  of  the  violin,  singing  or  moaning  in  the 
passionate  hands  of  a  master. 

Lord  Lytton  passes  away,  and  no  man  stops  his  neighbor  in 
the  street  to  speak  of  it.  He  lived  the  splendid,  selfish  life  he 
chose  to  live;  he  was  the  admired,  the  petted,  the  courted, 
the  titled,  the  rich  man  of  literature;  but  his  fame  was  as 
heartless  and  loveless  as  himself.  No  worthy  man  covets  his 
name  and  fame.  No  young  man  finds  in  him  virtues  to  emu- 
late, or  excellences  to  inspire.  No  man  finds  in  his  work  the 
stimulus  to  purity,  to  nobleness,  to  goodness.  He  lived  to  his 
autumn,  but  his  fruit,  brought  to  premature  beauty  by  the 
worms  it  bred,  rots  where  it  fell,  and  his  leaves,  brilliant  with 
many  dyes,  fall  at  the  touch  of  the  frost,  to  be  trodden  under 
foot  or  swept  away  by  the  wind. 

THE  DIFFICULTY  WITH  DICKENS. 

"  Was  Charles  Dickens  a  believer  in  our  Saviour's  life  and 
teachings  ?  "  is  the  question  which  a  few  men  have  attempted 
to  answer.  Now  we  beg  the  privilege  of  suggesting  that  it  is 
not  of  the  slightest  consequence  to  the  world  or  to  Christianity 
whether  Mr.  Dickens  believed  in  our  Saviour's  life  and  teach- 
ings or  not.  He  could  do  that  without  having  the  belief  of  the 
least  advantage  to  himself  or  his  fellow-men.  The  devils  believe 
— and — tremble.  Have  we  any  certificate  that  Mr.  Dickens 
trembled  ?  It  should  have  gone  as  far  as  that,  at  least. 

No ;  if  Mr.  Dickens  was  a  Christian — and  this,  after  all,  is  the 
real  question  that  the  world  cares  for — there  must  be  better 
evidences  of  the  fact  than  appear  in  the  defenses  under  con- 
sideration. If  he  was  a  Christian,  he  was  fond  during  his  life 
of  Christian  people.  With  as  hearty  a  hatred  of  sectarianism 


52 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


and  bigotry  and  cant  as  Mr.  Dickens  himself  ever  entertained, 
we  declare  in  all  candor  that  there  are  men  and  women  in  the 
world  who  are  informed  and  moved, by  the  spirit  of  the  Master. 
They  love  mankind  for  His  sake.  They  devote  their  lives  and 
labors,  and  yield  their  hearts'  best  love  to  Him.  They  are 
pure,  and  sweet,  and  good.  They  live  lives  of  prayer  and  be- 
nevolence. If  Mr.  Dickens  was  a  Christian,  he  loved  the  soci- 
ety of  these  people,  and  was  supremely  interested  in  their  aims 
and  ends  of  life.  When  between  these  and  those  who  so  often 
invited  him  to  the  convivial  table  he  was  called  upon  to  choose, 
he  made  a  Christian  choice.  So  his  defenders  should  not  have 
been  content  to  tell  what  Mr.  Dickens  believed,  but  they  should 
have  shown  by  his  sympathies  with  Christian  people  that  he 
possessed  the  Christian  spirit.  They  should  have  shown  how- 
he  always  labored  heart  and  hand  with  the  Christian  Church 
in  every  good  work;  how  for  that  religion  which  is  the  hope 
of  the  world  he  spent  money  and  sacrificed  time  and  talents, 
that  its  benign  influence  might  be  spread  among  the  nations 
of  the  earth  and  the  ignorant  multitudes  of  his  own  nation. 
His  ardent  sympathy  with  Christian  missions  should  have  been 
brought  forward,  and  his  love  and  respect  for  Christian  minis- 
ters, as  displayed  in  his  novels.  If  all  this  had  been  clone,  the 
question  would  have  been  more  nearly  settled  than  it  is. 

It  may  be  suggested  again  that  Mr.  Dickens's  friendliness  to 
Christian  reforms  would  do  much,  when  properly  presented,  to 
establish  his  Christian  character  before  the  world. 

In  the  long  period  of  his  literary  life,  during  which  he  had 
the  ear  and  the  heart  of  the  English-reading  world,  a  million 
men  and  women — more  or  less — in  Great  Britain  sank  into  the 
miserable  grave  of  the  drunkard.  The  liquor-fiend  desolated 
the  kingdom.  He  burned  up  the  health  and  the  prosperity  of 
the  nation.  He  instigated  murder,  robbery,  and  all  forms  of 


LITERATURE  AND  LITERARY  MEN. 


53 


cruel  violence.  He  beat  women  and  maimed  little  children, 
even  before  they  were  born.  He  assumed  all  seductive  forms, 
and  tempted  the  young  to  their  ruin.  Everywhere  his  work 
was  degradation,  desecration,  and  destruction.  No  pen  can 
record — nay,  no  imagination  can  picture — the  evils — the 
iOathsome  horrors — inflicted  upon  the  British  nation  during 
those  thirty  years,  by  the  demon  of  strong  drink.  To  show 
how  valiantly,  how  persistently,  and  how  powerfully  Mr. 
Dickens  worked  to  stem  the  tide  of  intemperance  in  his  own 
and  other  lands,  to  repeat  his  words  of  cheer  to  all  who  labored 
for  the  suppression  of  the  great  curse,  to  present  his  immacu- 
late example  of  abstinence  for  the  sake  of  one  of  the  least  of 
those  who  possibly  might  be  helped  by  it,  to  picture  the  noble 
characters  he  has  left  upon  his  printed  pages  to  represent  his 
ideal  temperance  reformers — this  would  certainly  be  better 
than  to  tell  what  he  believed,  and  would  go  to  show  something 
of  the  practical  power  of  his  belief. 

Still  again:  Mr.  Dickens  lived  during  a  period  when  the 
sanctities  of  Christian  marriage  were  assailed  by  pretended 
revelations  and  infidel  philosophies  and  bold  beastliness.  He 
belonged  to  a  guild  whose  members  had  been  conspicuously 
unhappy  in  their  marriage  relations.  Hundreds  of  literary 
men  and  literary  women  had  separated  from  their  companions, 
and  brought  disgrace  upon  themselves,  their  class,  and  the 
sacred  institution  whose  bonds  they  so  lightly  snapped  asun- 
der. To  such  lengths  had  one  of  them  gone,  that,  after  absorb- 
ing the  lovely  youth  of  his  wife — nay,  after  having  lived  with 
her  for  twenty  years,  and  seen  pillowed  in  her  maternal  arms 
his  large  family  of  beautiful  children,  he  decided  that  her  nature 
was  incompatible  with  his  own,  and  that  they  must  separate — 
a  decision  which  seems  so  sadly  cruel  that  we  can  find  no 
words  to  give  it  fitting  characterization.  To  be  able  to  say 


54  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

that  in  such  a  time  as  this  Mr.  Dickens,  though  sorely  tempted 
by  his  own  temperament  and  by  the  circumstances  in  which  he 
found  himself,  stood  with  Christian  resignation  and  Christian 
honor  by  his  vows,  would  be  grand  indeed,  and  would  do 
much  to  relieve  his  eulogists  of  future  questions  relating  to  the 
Christian  character  of  their  subject.  We  marvel  that  means  of 
vindication  so  close  at  hand  as  these  should  have  been  entirely 
overlooked. 

For  thirty  years  we  have  been  an  interested  reader  and  a 
devoted  admirer  of  Charles  Dickens.  We  believe  we  have 
appreciated  his  rare  genius  and  all  his  good  and  noble  impulses. 
Kind  things  have  been  said  of  him  and  his  memory  in  this 
magazine,  and  it  is  only  when  his  self-appointed  champions 
insist  on  holding  him  up  before  the  American  people  as  a 
Christian  saint  that  we  feel  compelled  to  protest.  If  Chris- 
tianity is  something  to  be  bottled  up  in  a  last  will  and  testa- 
ment, or  only  used  for  the  purposes  of  art  and  literature,  it  is 
very  cheap  stuff  and  is  not,  really,  worth  making  much  ado 
about.  If  it  is  something  which  softens,  purifies,  and  elevates 
character,  and  reforms  and  regulates  life,  it  is  not  at  all  neces- 
sary to  inquire  what  a  man  believes.  If  Mr.  Dickens  yielded 
his  life  to  the  supreme  control  of  Christian  motives  he  was  a 
Christian  man ;  and,  for  the  life  of  us,  we  do  not  see  how  he 
could  have  been  otherwise.  Nor  do  we  see  how  we  can  do  bet- 
ter in  the  attempt  to  determine  this — and  we  are  not  responsi- 
ble for  this  attempt — than  to  examine  with  the  eye  of  common 
sense  the  manifestations  and  outcome  of  his  life. 


CRITICISM. 

A  HERESY  OF  ART. 

More  than  fifty  years  ago  Wordsworth  said,  in  one  of  his 
most  carefully  prepared  utterances,  that  "poetry  is  most  just 
to  its  divine  origin  when  it  administers  the  comforts  and 
breathes  the  spirit  of  religion."  It  was  no  new  proposition, 
either  to  him  or  to  the  world.  The  connections  in  which  he 
placed  it  showed  that  he  regarded  it  as  soundly  established 
and  universally  accepted.  Of  course,  poetry  can  only  "ad- 
minister the  comforts"  of  religion  by  direct  design;  and,  by 
necessity,  the  design  to  fulfill  this  function  is  not  only  legiti- 
mate, but  laudable  in  the  exercise  of  poetic  art.  A  recent 
writer,  discoursing  of  poetry,  speaks  of  an  exceptionally  suc- 
cessful poem,  whose  title  and  authorship  he  does  not  give  us, 
as  originating  in  a  moral  rather  than  a  poetic  inspiration.  If 
lie  had  been  more  explicit,  and  said  all  that  he  intended  to 
convey,  he  would  have  said  that  no  true  poem  can  spring 
from  a  purely  moral  inspiration.  If  he  had  gone  still  further, 
and  revealed  to  us  the  fully  rounded  heresy  of  his  school,  he 
would  have  said  that  there  can  be  no  true  poem  and  no  true 
work  of  art  that  by  original  and  carefully  executed  design  is 
framed  and  armed  to  produce  a  moral  result  upon  the  souls  of 
men.  If  this  school  is  to  be  believed,  the  poetic  muse  is  never 
to  be  either  teacher  or  preacher ;  and  a  poem  with  a  moral  is 


s  6  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

a  work  of  art  with  that  one  fatal  blot,  or  taint,  or  weakness, 
or  unseemly  superfluity  which  destroys  its  genuineness. 

During  our  recent  civil  war,  a  gifted  woman  of  New  England 
gave  utterance  to  the  overflowing  religious  and  patriotic  senti- 
ments of  her  section  by  writing  a  hymn  which  was  sung  by  the 
Union  armies  wherever  they  bore  their  banners,  or  whitened 
the  hills  with  their  camps.  _It  was  one  of  the  grandest  and 
most  stirring  of  all  the  tuneful  utterances  of  the  time.  Sup- 
pose some  man,  speaking  of  this,  were  to  say  that  the  most 
successful  army  hymn  or  song  that  had  been  given  to  the 
world  within  the  last  ten  years  was  the  offspring  of  a  patriotic 
rather  than  a  poetic  inspiration !  Suppose  he  should  sneer  at 
Burns's  Highland  Mary  because  those  immortally  sweet  verses 
were  born  of  a  boy's  pure  love,  that  only  sought  expression  in 
them  !  What  should  we  think  of  such  a  man  ?  What  ought 
to  be  thought  of  such  a  man  ?  Simply,  that  he  is  so  utterly 
misled  by  a  false  theory  of  art  as  to  be  incapable  of  saying 
any  worthy  and  valuable  thing  about  it. 

But  the  critic  does  not  say  this,  and  he  will  not  say  it.  It 
is  not  that  a  poem  may  not  be  inspired  by  the  love  of  a  woman, 
or  by  the  love  of  country,  or  by  the  love  of  fame,  or  by  the 
love  of  beauty ;  it  is  that  it  cannot  be  inspired  by  the  love  of 
God — Himself  the  Great  Inspirer !  So  long  as  the  poet  deals 
with  the  flowers  of  the  field,  that  rise  to  his  eye  and  beat  with 
soft  wings  at  the  bars  of  all  his  senses  for  admission  to  his  soul, 
e  writes  poetry ;  but  when  he  touches  those  sentiments  of  the 
religious  spirit  which  open  themselves  to  The  Divine,  and  rise 
with  aspiration,  adoration,  love,  and  praise,  he  strikes  prose, 
and  writes  stuff!  We  declare  this  to  be  a  heresy  so  degrad- 
ing to  art,  so  belittling  to  the  minds  entertaining  it,  so  sub- 
versive and  perversive  of  all  sound  criticism,  that  until  it  shall 
be  overthrown  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  progress  in  liter- 


CRITICISM. 


57 


ary  art  among  those  who  entertain  it.  Even  our  beloved 
Whittier,  singing  away  his  beautiful  life,  and  soaring  while  he 
sings,  is  impatiently  accused  of  "preaching"  because  his  songs 
are  less  and  less  of  the  earth  from  which  he  retires  and  more 
and  more  of  the  heaven  into  which  he  rises ! 

If  art  may  convey  one  lesson,  it  may  another.  If  it  is 
legitimate  for  art  to  bear  one  burden,  it  may  bear  a  hundred ; 
and  the  heresy  of  which  we  speak,  in  condemning  all  art  that 
springs  from  a  moral  inspiration,  condemns  the  best,  nay,  the 
only  worthy  things  that  have  been  created  in  every  depart- 
ment of  art.  If  George  MacDonald  is  not  a  true  artist,  there 
is  no  true  artist  writing  the  English  language;  yet  he  literally 
writes  nothing  that  is  not  the  offspring  of  a  moral  or  a  religious 
inspiration.  The  lady  who  writes  over  the  nom  de  plume  of 
George  Eliot  is  the  greatest  living  Englishwoman, — a  woman 
who,  since  Mrs.  Browning  died,  has  had  no  peer  as  a  literary 
artist  among  her  sex;  but  she  carefully  elaborates  in  her  best 
work  a  high  moral  purpose,  and,  lest  some  fool  may  possibly 
miss  or  mistake  it,  she  works  it  all  into  the  last  page  of  Romola. 
"  It  is  only  a  poor  sort  of  happiness  that  could  ever  come  by 

caring  very  much  about  our  own  narrow  pleasures 

There  are  so  many  things  wrong  and  difficult  in  the  world 
that  no  man  can  be  great — he  can  hardly  keep  himself  from 
wickedness — unless  he  gives  up  thinking  about  pleasures  and  re- 
wards, and  gets  strength  to  endure  what  is  hard  and  painful." 
What  is  Aurora  Leigh,  by  the  greatest  poetess  of  our  century, 
if  not  of  all  time,  but  one  long  and  carefully  elaborated  lesson 
of  life  ?  Every  book  that  comes  from  the  pens  of  Mrs.  Stowe 
and  Mrs.  Whitney,  our  best  living  female  writers  in  America, 
is  thoroughly  charged  with  moral  purpose ;  and  Hawthorne, 
than  whom  no  writer  of  English  stands  higher  as  an  artist, 
was  not  content  in  his  best  book — The  Scarlet  Letter — to  per- 


5  8  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

mit  his  lesson  to  be  inferred,  but  he  put  it  into  words :  "  Be 
true,  be  true,  be  true  ! "  With  the  heretics  under  discussion,  it 
is  entirely  legitimate  for  a  heathen  to  embody  his  religion  in 
his  poetry,  and  to  use  his  religion  as  material  of  poetry ;  but 
when  a  Christian  undertakes  to  do  the  same  thing  he  is  warned 
off,  and  informed  that  no  poetry  can  come  of  a  purely  mora 
or  religious  inspiration. 

There  is  a  noteworthy  coincidence  in  the  fact  that  the  theo- 
ries of  the  nature  and  province  of  art  upon  which  we  have 
animadverted  exist  only  or  mainly  in  association  with  infidel 
opinions.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  in  America 
a  large  circle  of  literary  men  and  women  from  whom  all 
sincere  faith  in  Christianity  and  in  the  interest  of  God  in  the 
affairs  of  men  has  gone  out.  They  are  just  as  fond  of  preach- 
ing in  and  through  art  as  they  are  of  preaching  in  the  pulpit. 
They  regard  with  pitying  contempt  those  whose  faith  still 
stands  by  the  revelations  of  The  Great  Book,  and  read  with 
impatience  all  those  utterances  of  literary  art  which  are  in- 
spired by  it.  That  their  lack  of  faith  in  the  grand",  central 
truths  of  their  own  nature,  relations,  and  history  should  lead 
them  into  absurd  and  inconsistent  theories  of  art,  is  not  strange ; 
but  it  is  strange  that  Christian  men  and  women  have  not  more 
openly  protested  against  those  theories,  and  strange  that  many 
have  not  only  been  puzzled  by  them,  but  have  been  half  in- 
clined to  accept  them.  It  is  well  that  Heaven  takes  care  of 
its  own,  and  impels  each  man  whom  it  moves  to  artistic  utter- 
ance to  speak  forth  that  which  is  in  him  in  his  own  best  way, 
and,  regardless  of  theories,  to  go  on  doing  so  while  he  lives. 
More  than  this :  it  is  well  that  the  world  has  a  sense  of  its  own 
needs,  and  gratefully  recognizes  the  heavenly  credentials  of 
that  art  which  comes  to  it  with  gifts  and  deeds  of  ministry. 


CRITICISM.  ij9 

CRITICISM  AS  A  FINE  ART. 

A  brief  article,  entitled  "Criticism  as  a  Fine  Art,"  which 
appeared  not  long  since  in  a  foreign  magazine,  from  the 
pen  of  Mr.  Arthur  Mattheson,  was  a  notable  production  that 
did  not  receive  the  attention  in  America  which  its  merits 
deserved.  Nothing  more  remarkable  for  acuteness  of  insight, 
justness  of  judgment,  and  appositeness  of  illustration  has  ap- 
peared, within  our  knowledge,  upon  this  subject.  The  con- 
clusion arrived  at  by  the  writer  is,  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  science  of  criticism — that  there  are  no  such  universally 
recognized  canons  of  critical  art  as  will  enable  any  two  writers 
of  differing  mental  organization  and  differing  education  and 
opinions  to  arrive  at  identical  decisions  regarding  a  literary 
work,  worthy  of  being  criticised  at  all.  This  being  proved  or 
admitted,  it  follows  that  criticism  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
the  method  by  which  the  critic  reveals,  not  the  characteristics 
of  the  author  criticised,  but  those  of  himself.  Thus  all  the 
science  there  is  in  the  matter  applies  to  the  critic,  and  not  to 
the  work  he  criticises.  Given  a  certain  book,  and  a  critic  of 
certain  social,  political,  and  religious  opinions,  with  a  certain 
grade  of  culture,  and  the  critique  he  will  write  can  be  pre- 
determined. The  abstract  or  absolute  merits  of  the  book, 
if  it  have  any,  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  critic's 
decision.  What  he  does  is  simply  to  describe  himself  and 
define  his  standpoint ;  and  the  book  is  used  simply  as  a  means 
for  the  end  aimed  at  in  entire  unconsciousness. 

The  truthfulness  of  Mr.  Mattheson's  theory  is  proved  by  the 
history  of  criticism ;  for  nothing  is  better  known  than  that  the 
great  books  of  the  world  have  made  their  way  and  their  place 
in  total  disregard  of  its  decisions.  Though  a  thousand  critics 
determine  that  a  book  ought  not  to  live,  if  it  is  a  real  book  it 
lives,  without  the  slightest  reference  to  their  opinions  and 


60  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

protests.  What  the  critics  prove  by  their  work  is,  simply, 
their  lack  of  power  to  comprehend  and  appreciate  it.  They 
prove  nothing  against  the  book  whatever.  There  has  not 
lived  a  great  British  author  within  the  last  century  whose 
works  have  not  been  subjected  to  the  most  scorching  criticisms 
and  the  most  slashing  and  sweeping  condemnations.  Yet 
those  criticisms  and  condemnations  have  passed  for  nothing. 
The  criticisms,  often  profoundly  ingenious,  and  full  of  learning 
and  power,  die,  and  the  books  live.  They  are  often  exceed- 
ingly creditable  productions — so  creditable,  indeed,  that  they 
form  the  basis  of  great  personal  reputations — but  they  accom- 
plish absolutely  nothing  except  the  revelation  of  the  men  who 
produce  them.  Criticism  thus  becomes  a  form  of  personal 
expression,  and  is  just  as  thoroughly  individualized  as  if  it 
were  poetry,  or  picture,  or  sculpture.  The  critic  takes  a  book 
in  one  hand,  and  uses  the  other  to  paint  himself  with.  When 
his  work  is  done,  we  may  fail  to  find  the  book  in  it,  but  we  are 
sure  to  find  him. 

The  growth  in  the  popular  regard  of  the  music  of  Wagner 
might  have  furnished  a  forcible  illustration  to  Mr.  Mattheson 
of  the  soundness  of  his  position,  had  he  needed  more  than  he 
used.  No  great  musician  of  the  century  has  been  so  per- 
sistently sneered  at  by  the  critics  as  Wagner.  His  music  has 
been  called,  in  derision,  "The  music  of  the  future,"  until  the 
phrase  is  everywhere  identified  with  his  productions.  The 
young  King  of  Bavaria  has  been  supposed  to  be  half  daft, 
because,  in  addition  to  his  other  eccentricities,  he  has  believed 
in  Wagner,  and  devoted  himself  to  him.  During  this  storm 
of  detraction  which  has  rattled  over  the  whole  world,  Wagner 
has  been  quietly  and  most  fruitfully  at  work ;  and,  as  a  single 
home-comment  on  his  music,  it  is  pleasant  to  recall  the  Wag- 
ner-evening given  at  Thomas's  Garden  among  the  closing 


CRITICISM.  6l 

summer  concerts  by  the  finest  of  our  orchestras.  The  last 
work  of  the  season  was  expended  upon  Wagner's  music,  and 
it  drew  together  a  great  crowd  of  the  first  musicians  of  the 
city  and  of  the  country  about  us.  "The  music  of  the  future" 
has  become  the  music  of  the  present.  The  critics,  in  deriding 
or  denouncing  it,  simply  proclaimed  their  inability  to  compre- 
hend it,  and  their  mocking  phrase  stares  them  in  the  face  as  a 
grand  prophecy  fulfilled. 

Viewed  from  Mr.  Mattheson's  position,  criticism  becomes 
one  of  the  most  amusing  branches  of  our  literature.  The 
opinion  of  a  journal  upon  a  literary  work  is,  after  all,  only  the 
self-revelation  of  a  man.  When  we  look  through  the  preten- 
tious and  authoritative  types,  into  the  manuscript  written  by 
some  unfledged  litterateur,  or  some  disappointed  and  soured 
hireling,  or  some  pretender  charged  with  the  affectation  of 
learning,  or  some  specialist  possessed  by  his  one  idea,  or  some 
zealot  or  partisan,  or  some  greedy  seeker  for  sensation  and 
notoriety,  we  lose  our  respect  for  much  that  passes  for  criticism, 
and  learn  the  reason  of  its  powerlessness  in  determining  the 
public  opinion.  A  poor  fellow  who  pumps  his  brain  and  levies 
contributions  on  his  commonplace  books,  and  crams  himself 
with  the  lumber  of  libraries,  to  show  how  much  more  he  knows 
than  the  authors  upon  whom  he  presumes  to  sit  in  judgment, 
is  a  funny  spectacle  to  everybody  but  his  unconscious  self. 

The  general  worthlessness  of  criticism  is  shown  best,  per- 
haps, in  the  fact  that  the  view  which  any  given  periodical  will 
take  of  any  given  book  can  always  be  predicted  by  any  man 
thoroughly  conversant  with  the  views,  prejudices,  and  spirit  of 
its  conductors.  Two  periodicals,  edited  with  equal  talent  and 
learning,  can  always  be  selected  which  will  present  opinions 
diametrically  opposed  to  each  other  on  any  book  of  positive 
qualities.  As  a  general  thing,  criticism  has  no  drift.  It  is  a 


62  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPIC  S. 

confused  mass  of  individual  opinions  whose  tendency  is  to 
destroy  each  other.  It  may  assist  the  public  in  getting  a  view 
of  the  different  sides  of  a  literary  work,  but  it  does  not  deter- 
mine anything,  and  is  not  relied  upon  to  determine  anything. 
Indeed,  it  is  so  contradictory  that  it  cannot  possibly  determine 
anything  but  its  own  worthlessness.  In  view  of  these  facts, 
the  ex-cathedra  judgments  of  some  of  our  journals  are  laugh- 
able enough,  especially  when  we  remember  how  sincerely  their 
authors  believe  in  their  own  judicial  wisdom,  and  how  dis- 
gusted they  are  with  the  fact  that  the  world  will  not  endorse 
it.  Mr.  Mattheson  has  at  least  helped  us  to  apprehend  one 
office  of  criticism,  not  commonly  known  hitherto.  It  quite 
reverses  the  point  of  observation  and  study,  but  it  makes  it 
more  interesting,  and  ought  to  make  it  more  useful. 

THE  INDECENCIES  OF  CRITICISM. 

The  uses  of  competent  and  candid  criticism  are  various. 
The  first  is  to  assist  the  public  in  arriving  at  a  just  judgment 
of  the  various  productions  of  literature  and  art,  and  the 
enlightenment  and  correction  of  their  producers.  Nothing 
that  passes  for,  or  pretends  to  be,  criticism,  is  worthy  of  the 
name,  that  does  not  accomplish  these  objects;  and  these 
results,  in  various  forms,  may  be  grouped  under  the  head  of 
information.  The  next  object  is  one  of  education.  The 
processes  of  criticism  are  educational,  both  to  the  critic  and  to 
the  public.  The  study  of  the  various  forms  of  art — literary, 
architectural,  pictorial,  plastic;  the  discussions  of  relations, 
proportions,  details;  the  exposition  of  the  rules  of  construc- 
tion as  they  relate  to  the  body  of  a  work,  and  of  vitalizing 
principle,  purpose  and  taste,  as  they  relate  to  its  spirit — all 
these  are  educational.  They  fit  not  only  the  public,  but  the 
critic  himself,  to  judge  of  other  works.  They  assist  in  build- 


CRITICISM  63 

ing  up  a  public  judgment,  and  in  training  the  public  mind  for 
the  trial  of  that  which  comes  before  it  for  sentence.  The 
office  of  criticism  is  one  of  the  most  important,  dignified,  and 
difficult,  that  a  writer  is  ever  called  upon  to  assume.  It 
requires  not  only  a  sound  head  but  a  good  heart.  It  calls  not 
only  for  wide  knowledge,  fine  intellectual  gifts,  and  a  closely 
discriminating  judicial  mind,  but  for  a  catholicity  of  sympathy 
and  a  broad  good-will  that  will  enable  a  man  to  handle  his 
materials  without  prejudice,  and  lead  him  to  his  work  with  the 
wish  to  find,  and  the  purpose  to  exhibit,  all  of  worthiness  it 
possesses.  A  critic  must  be  able  to  find  the  inside  of  an 
author's  design,  and  to  get  his  outlook  from  the  inside.  In 
brief,  he  must  be  a  very  rare  man.  He  need  not  be  able  to 
produce  the  works  upon  which  he  sits  in  judgment,  but  he 
should,  at  least  be  able  sympathetically  to  apprehend  the 
nature  and  purpose  of  the  producer,  and  large  and  many-sided 
enough  to  grasp  and  entertain  the  great  variety  of  human 
genius  and  power  and  their  multifarious  products. 

How  many  competent  critics  have  we  in  America?  Not 
many.  The  critical  judgment  furnishes  the  most  notable  jar- 
gon of  the  literary  world.  There  is  not  a  work  of  art  worth 
noticing  at  all  that  does  not  use  up,  in  its  critical  characteriza- 
tion, all  the  adjectives  of  praise  and  dispraise.  To  one,  a  book 
may  be  a  farrago  of  nonsense;  to  another,  the  finest  flight  of 
human  genius.  So  ludicrous  do  these  contrarieties  of  opinion 
appear,  and  so  little  do  publishers  and  the  public  care  for  them, 
that  they  are  published  side  by  side  in  the  advertisements  of 
booksellers  as  "the  unbiased  opinions  of  the  press."  So  ludi- 
crous are  they,  indeed,  that  the  public  have  ceased  to  be  guided 
by  them.  It  is  often  the  case  that  books  which  win  the  widest 
praise  find  no  market  whatever,  while  those  which  are  greeted 
with  critical  derision  reach  no  end  of  editions.  The  shameful 


64  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

fact  is,  or  seems  to  be,  that  the  public  have  no  faith  in  the 
criticism  of  the  day.  They  read  criticism  for  amusement  as 
they  would  read  a  novel,  and  straightway  buy  the  book,  the 
record  of  whose  condemnation  is  fresh  in  their  minds,  tolerably 
sure  of  finding  the  worth  of  their  purchase-money.  Who  are 
these  men  of  warring  counsels  and  conclusions  ? 

A.  runs  a  country  paper.      He  writes  no  criticisms  himself, 
but  there  is  a  young  man  at  his  elbow,  fresh  from  college,  who 
is  literary,  or  nothing.     He  has  read  little,  and  thought  less; 
but  criticism  gives  him  practice  in  writing;  so  he  writes.      He 
has  no  well-formed  opinion  on  anything,  but  he  must  express 
an  opinion.      The  solid  work  of  some  old  man  of  letters  comes 
into  his  hands,  and  then  the  young  progressive  gets  his  chance. 
Woe  to  the  old  fogy  who  presumes  to  write  a  book!  Incap- 
able of  writing  his  mother  tongue  well,  with  nothing  in  his  head 
but  the  contents  of  his  college  text-books,  with  no  experience 
of  life,  with  no  culture,  with  no  practical  knowledge  of  the  great 
questions  that  engage  the  thinkers  of  the  age,  the  young  man 
sits  down  and  demolishes  the  work  of  one  by  the  side  of  whom 
he  is  but  an  infant  of  days.     He  parades  what  little  knowledge 
he  possesses,  through  legitimate  study  or  illegitimate  cram,  and 
when  his  critique  appears,  he  prances  around  it  and  parades  it 
before  his  friends.     This  sort  of  job  is  supposed  to  assist  the 
public  in  forming  an  intelligent  opinion ! 

B.  writes  his  own  criticisms.      He  edits  a  country  paper  by 
downright  hard  work.    He  is  fond  of  receiving  the  favors  of  pub- 
lishers, and  anxious  to  please  them.    All  the  week  long  the  books 
accumulate  upon  his  table  until,  on  Friday  or  Saturday,  they 
must  be  attended  to,  or  they  will  overwhelm  him.     So  he  starts 
at  the  top  of  the  pile  and  works  down  through.     Up  to  the 
moment  of  his  beginning,  he  has  not  looked  inside  of  a  cover. 
He  copies  the  titles,  looks  at  the  preface,  glances  at  an  expres- 


CRITICISM.  65 

sion  here  and  there,  and  then  records  his  judgment.  In  three 
hours  he  has  finished;  and  the  batch  of  "book  notices"  goes 
in,  with  the  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  writer  that  there  is 
not  a  competent  criticism  in  the  number,  though  there  may  be 
twenty  ex-cathedra  opinions.  Not  a  book  has  been  read,  and 
nothing  beyond  a  first  impression  has  been  recorded;  and, 
again,  the  public  is  supposed  to  have  been  very  much  enlight- 
ened! 

C.  is  the  editor  of  a  feeble  sheet  to  which  he  wishes  to  attract 
attention.      He  knows   that  his  candid  judgment  is  not  ac- 
counted for  much,  so  he  tries  an  uncandid  one.      He  will  win 
notice  by  the  amount  of  fur  which  he  can  strip  off  and  set  fly- 
ing; by  the  streams  of  blood  he  can  set  flowing;  by  the  hurts 
he  can  inflict;  by  the  outrages  he  can  commit.     To  him,  an 
author  or  an  artist  is  fair  game.      His  paper  must  live.     His 
paper  shall  live.     He  sails  under  a  black  flag,  and,  because 
people  think  a  pirate  interesting,  they  flock  around  to  look 
upon  his  ugly  craft  and  examine  his  ensanguined  shirt-sleeves. 
He  is  a  man  who  stands  no  nonsense,  and  acknowledges  no 
loyalty  to  the  amenities  of  life.      He  caricatures  women  in  his 
pages,  or  tells  them  that  they  are  old  and  ugly.     He  perpetrates 
personal  affronts,  for  which  he  ought  to  be  knocked  down  like 
a  dog;   and  when  taken  to  task  for  them,  he  talks  about  the 
sacrifices  that  all  men  suffer  who  undertake  thorough  criticism ! 
So  here  is  another  manufacturer  of  public  opinion. 

D.  is  a  dyspeptic,  who  simply  voids  his  spleen  on  paper. 
He  is  obliged  to  write  for  a  living,  and  his  breakfast  invariably 
rises  sour  in  his  gorge.     His  physician  can  prescribe  for  him 
as  well  by  reading  his  criticism  as  a  quack  can  by  examining 
his  glandular  secretions  in  a  vial,  and  can  see  just  where  an 
antacid,  or  a  mercurial,  or  a  tonic,  would  tone  down  a  judgment, 
or  modify  an  expression,  or  elevate  him  to  appreciation.     He 

5 


66  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

uses  a  sharp  pen,  and  tempers  his  ink  with  vinegar.  He  is  cross 
and  crotchety.  It  is  as  hard  for  an  author  or  an  artist  to  get 
along  with  him  as  it  is  for  his  wife  and  children.  He  must  have 
vent  for  his  humor,  and  the  innocent  books  that  come  to  him 
must  suffer.  The  boy  who  pounds  his  thumb  with  a  hammer, 
throws  his  hammer  through  the  nearest  mirror,  purely  as  an  ex- 
pression of  his  mingled  pain  and  anger.  The  mirror  is  not  in 
the  least  to  blame,  but  something  must  be  smashed  to  avoid 
swearing.  The  dyspeptic  critic  operates  in  the  same  way,  and 
his  criticisms  are  the  natural  outcome  of  the  horrors  and 
irritations  of  his  indigestion. 

E.  is  a  partisan,  and  the  member  of  a  clique.     All  that  is 
done  inside  the  circle  in  which,  by  choice  or  circumstances,  he 
finds  himself  placed,  is  rightly  done.     The  pets  of  that  clique 
can  do  no  wrong.     To  exhibit  their  excellences,  to  paint  their 
superiorities,  to  cackle  vicariously  over  their  eggs,  is  one-half 
of  the  business  of  his  life.     The  other  half  is  to  cheapen,  pick 
in  pieces,  ridicule,  condemn,  and,  so  far  as  he  can,  destroy  the 
work  of  all  outside  of  the  charmed  line  which  circumscribes 
the  area  of  his  sympathies.     Within  his  field,  all  growths  are 
divine :  sun-flowers  are*  suns,  daisies  are  dahlias,  crab-apples 
are  pomegranates,  and  an  onion  is  the  fountain  of  tearful  emo- 
tion.  Outside  of  his  field,  the  land  is  desert,  and  the  people  are 
barbarians,  who  not  only  do  nothing  well,  but  who  are  guilty 
of  great  presumption  in  attempting  to  do  anything  at  all.     It 
is  the  land  of  the  thorn  and  the  thistle.     There  dwells  the  wild 
ass.     There  hammers,  among  senseless  echoes,  the  lonely  bit- 
tern.    There  poisonous  waters  break  on  barren  shores,  and 
there  dwell  the  graceless  infidels  who  do  not  worship  toward 
the  holy  hill,  humbly  at  whose  foot  he  has  reared  his  taber- 
nacle. 

F.  is  a  man  whose  theory  of  criticism  compels  him  to  simple 


CRITICISM.  67 

fault-finding.  He  may  have  brains,  culture,  acumen,  or  none 
or  little  of  all  these,  but  it  has  never  entered  into  his  head  that 
criticism  calls  for  the  discrimination  of  excellences.  His  busi- 
ness is  to  pick  flaws,  and  he  does  it  without  reference  to  any 
man's  standard  of  taste,  or  point  of  purpose,  but  his  own. 
He  takes  no  account  of  an  author's  peculiar  power,  or  the 
kind  of  audience  he  addresses  and  seeks  to  move.  He  be- 
longs to  no  clique;  vaunts  his  independence;  and  demon- 
strates that  independence  by  finding  all  the  fault  possible  with 
everything  that  comes  to  him.  He  assumes  to  be  a  sort  of  in- 
spector-general of  literary  and  artistic  wares,  and  sorts  them, 
as  they  come  along,  by  their  defects.  A  rose  may  be  beauti- 
ful and  fragrant,  but  if  he  finds  a  petal  over-colored  or  under- 
colored,  or  decayed,  or  imperfectly  formed,  it  is  tossed  aside 
among  the  worthless.  If  it  have  a  rose-bug  in  it,  or  a  worm, 
it  is  thrown  among  those  infested  with  insects  or  vermin.  The 
more  faults  he  can  find,  the  more  pride  he  takes  to  his  eyes 
for  their  discovery.  It  is  not  his  business  to  nurse  art,  or  to 
encourage  merit.  It  is  not  his  business,  perhaps,  to  depress 
either,  but  he  has  an  office  like  the  English  sparrow,  which  is 
to  kill  vermin.  If  he  also  drives  away  all  the  singing  birds,  it 
is  not  his  affair.  The  blue-bird  may  flee  his  society,  the  robin 
may  build  his  nest  otherwhere,  the  songs  of  the  summer  morn- 
ing may  cease;  it  matters  not,  so  long  as  he  can  swab  his 
greedy  throat  with  a  caterpillar,  and  save  the  tree  on  which  he 
holds  his  perch,  and  in  which  he  builds  his  nest. 

G.  is  a  man  of  learning,  whose  simple  effort  in  criticism  is 
to  prove  to  an  author  and  the  public  how  much  more  than 
the  author  he  knows  of  the  subject  which  he  discusses. 
His  criticisms  are  disquisitions,  expositions,  treatises.  The 
book  in  hand  is  the  occasion  of  his  performance,  not  in  any 
way  the  subject  of  it.  It  is  simply  a  peg  on  which  he  hangs 


68  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

his  clothes  for  an  airing,  or  a  graceful  apology  for  calling  atten- 
tion to  himself.  In  short,  he  uses  the  book  in  hand  for  the 
purpose  of  putting  himself  forward,  not  as  a  critic,  but  as  an 
author!  Of  the  dreariness  and  essential  indecency  of  this 
kind  of  criticism,  we  have  left  ourselves  no  room  to  speak. 
Its  egotism  and  arrogance  would  be  ludicrous,  if  they  were 
not  disgusting. 

H.  regards  criticism  as  an  instrument  of  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments. He  pays  his  friends  with  it,  and  revenges  himself 
upon  those  whom  he  chooses  to  consider  his  enemies.  He 
approaches  either  task  without  the  slightest  conscience.  Every 
book,  and  every  work  of  art,  is  handled  without  any  regard  to 
its  merits,  and  only  with  relation  to  his  own  selfish  interests 
and  feelings.  He  "takes  down"  a  man  by  assailing  his  pro- 
ductions, and  lifts  him  up  by  praising  them.  In  the  whole 
range  of  what,  by  courtesy,  is  called  "criticism,"  there  is  noth- 
ing more  indecent  than  this.  The  only  thing  that  makes  it 
tolerable  is,  that  its  motive  is  too  apparent  to  permit  it  to  have 
any  marked  effect  on  public  opinion. 

There  are  other  classes  of  indecent  critics  and  indecent 
criticism  that  we  should  be  glad  to  notice,  but  the  list  is  al- 
ready long,  and  when  we  have  fairly  exhausted  it — when  we 
have  assigned  to  these  classes  all  the  critics  and  all  the  criti- 
cism that  justly  belong  to  them — what  have  we  left  ?  It  is 
a  painful  question  to  ask,  and  a  hard  one  to  answer.  We  cer- 
tainly have  not  much  left,  but  we  have  something.  Let  us  be 
grateful,  at  least,  to  those  men  and  women,  scattered  here  and 
there  over  the  country,  who,  with  well-cultured  brains  and 
catholic  hearts,  make  of  criticism,  a  careful,  conscientious,  dis- 
criminating task — who,  with  sympathy  for  all  who  are  hon- 
estly trying  to  build  up  their  country's  literature  and  add  to 
its  treasures  of  native  art,  approach  their  work  with  kind- 


CRITICISM.  69 

ness  and  candor,  and  so  perform  it  as  to  educe  the  best  that 
every  worker  can  do.  Such  men  and  women  are  public  bene- 
factors, the  dignity  and  importance  of  whose  office  it  would  be 
hard  to  exaggerate.  We  need  more  of  them — need  them 
sadly.  In  the  meantime,  it  is  probable  that  incompetency, 
flippancy,  arrogance,  partisanship,  ill-nature,  and  the  perti- 
nacious desire  to  attract  attention,  will  go  on  with  their  indecent 
work,  until  criticism,  which  has  now  sunk  to  public  contempt, 
will  fall  to  dirtier  depths  beneath  it. 

CONSCIENCE  AND  COURTESY  IN  CRITICISM. 

The  lack  of  sound  value  in  current  literary  criticism,  both 
in  this  country  and  Europe,  is  notorious.  It  is  so  much  the 
work  of  cliques  and  schools,  or  so  much  the  office  of  men 
who  have  a  chronic  habit  of  finding  fault,  or  so  coarse  in  its 
personalities,  or  so  incompetent  in  its  judgments  through 
haste  and  insufficient  examination,  that  it  is  rarely  instructive, 
either  to  the  authors  reviewed  or  to  the  public.  The  average 
column  of  book-notices  in  a  daily  paper  is  quite  valueless,  by 
necessity.  The  reviewer  seems  to  forget  that  all  the  influence 
of  the  journal  for  which  he  works  stands  behind  his  hastily- 
written  words,  and  that  sensitive  men  and  women  are  to  be 
warmed  or  withered  by  them.  Just  a  little  more  conscience, 
or  a  more  candid  consultation  of  such  as  he  may  have,  would 
teach  him  that  he  has  no  moral  right  to  give  publicly  an 
opinion  of  a  book  of  which  he  knows  nothing.  In  so  small  a 
matter  as  noticing  a  book  before  a  competent  examination  of 
it,  the  chances  are  that  he  will  mislead  the  public  and  do  in- 
justice to  those  who  nearly  always  have  some  claim  to  the 
good  opinion  of  the  reading  world.  Publishers  expect  impos- 
sibilities of  the  daily  press,  and  are  largely  responsible  for  what 
is  known  as  the  "book-notice;"  but  the  daily  press  ought  to 


70  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

declare  its  independence,  and  absolutely  refuse  to  notice  any 
book  which  has  not  been  thoroughly  read.  The  best  and 
richest  of  the  city  press  has  already  done  this;  but  the  country 
press  keeps  up  its  column  of  book-notices  every  week,  written 
by  editors  who  never  have  time  to  look  beyond  the  preface. 

In  England,  criticism  is  probably  more  the  work  of  partisan- 
ship than  it  is  here.  The  interests  of  parties  in  church  and 
state,  and  of  cliques  and  schools  of  literary  art,  seem  to  deter- 
mine everything.  It  appears  to  be  perfectly  understood  that 
everything  written  by  the  members  of  a  certain  clique  will  be 
condemned,  and  if  possible  killed,  by  the  conibined  efforts  of 
another  clique,  and  vice  versa.  Criticism  is  simply  a  mode  of 
fighting.  Mr.  Blank,  belonging  to  a  certain  literary  clique, 
writes  a  volume  of  verses  and  prints  it.  He  sends  advance 
copies  to  his  friends,  who  write  their  laudations  of  it,  and  com- 
municate them  to  sympathetic  journals  and  magazines.  So 
when  it  is  published,  the  critiques  appear  almost  simulta- 
neously, and  the  public  is  captured  by  the  stratagem.  The 
condemnations  come  too  late  to  kill  the  book,  and  the  clever 
intriguers  have  their  laugh  over  the  result.  It  is  not  harsh  to 
say  that  all  criticism  born  of  this  spirit  is  not  only  intrinsically 
valueless,  but  without  conscience.  The  supreme  wish  to  do 
right  and  to  mete  out  simple  justice  to  authorship  is  wanting. 
The  praise  is  as  valueless  as  the  blame. 

The  old  and  fierce  personalities  of  English  criticism,  which 
so  aroused  the  ire  of  Byron,  and  crushed  the  spirit  of  some  of 
his  less  pugnacious  contemporaries,  have,  in  a  measure,  passed 
away ;  but  really  nothing  better  in  the  grand  result  has  taken 
their  place.  Men  stand  together  for  mutual  protection,  fully 
aware  that  they  have  nothing  to  expect  of  justice  and  fair 
dealing  by  any  other  means.  We  do  not  know  why  it  is  that 
the  ordinary  courtesies  of  life  are  denied  to  authors  more  than 


CRITICISM.  7 ! 

to  painters  or  sculptors  or  architects,  except,  perhaps,  that 
painters  and  sculptors  and  architects  are  not  judged  by  theif 
own  co-laborers  in  art.  We  presume  that  these,  and  that  sing- 
ers and  actors  would  fare  badly,  if  all  the  criticisms  upon  them 
were  written  by  their  professional  brethren ;  and  this  fact  sug- 
gests the  animus  of  those  who  criticise  current  literature.  It 
seems  impossible  to  get  a  candid  and  conscientious  judgment 
of  a  literary  man  until  after  he  is  dead,  and  out  of  the  way  of 
all  envyings  and  jealousies  and  competitions.  It  seems  im- 
possible, also,  until  this  event  occurs,  to  separate  a  man  from 
his  works,  and  to  judge  them  as  they  stand.  There  is  no  good 
reason,  however,  for  the  personal  flings  dealt  out  to  authors, 
whose  only  sin  has  been  a  conscientious  wish  to  deserve  well 
of  the  public,  except  what  is  to  be  found  in  the  meanest  quali- 
ties of  human  nature.  The  lack  of  personal,  gentlemanly 
courtesy  in  current  criticism  is  a  disgrace  to  the  critical  columns 
of  our  newspapers  and  magazines. 

The  majority  of  those  who  write  are  sensitive  to  a  high 
degree,  and  could  not  possibly  be  notable  writers  were  they 
otherwise.  They  do  the  best  they  can,  and  that  which  they 
do  is  the  record  of  the  highest  civilization  and  culture  of  their 
country  and  period.  They  publish,  trembling  to  think  that  what 
they  publish  is  to  be  pounced  upon  and  picked  to  pieces  like 
prey.  Their  best  thoughts  and  best  work  are  not  only  treated 
without  respect,  but  they  find  themselves  maligned,  cheapened, 
maliciously  characterized,  or  summarily  condemned.  All  this 
they  are  obliged  to  bear  in  silence,  or  suffer  the  reputation  of 
being  thin-skinned  and  quarrelsome.  There  is  no  redress  and 
no  defense.  They  have  published  a  book,  in  which  they  have 
incorporated  the  results  of  a  life  of  labor  and  thought  and  suf- 
fering, with  the  hope  of  doing  good,  and  of  adding  something 
to  the  literary  wealth  of  their  country ;  and  they  have  in  so 


7  2  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

doing  committed  a  sin  which  places  them  at  the  mercy  of 
every  man  who  holds  a  periodical  press  at  his  command.  It 
is  said  that  the  greatest  literary  woman  living  fled  her  country 
at  the  conclusion  of  that  which  is  perhaps  her  greatest  work, 
in  order  to  be  beyond  the  reading  of  the  criticisms  which  the 
book  would  call  forth.  The  woman  was  wise.  It  was  not 
criticism  that  she  feared :  it  was  the  malevolence  and  injustice 
of  its  spirit,  to  which  she  would  not  subject  her  sensibilities. 

There  is  but  one  atmosphere  in  which  literature  can  truly 
thrive,  viz. :  that  of  kindness  and  encouragement.  A  criticism 
from  which  an  author  may  learn  anything  to  make  him  better, 
must  be  courteous  and  conscientious.  All  criticism  of  a  dif- 
ferent quality  angers  or  discourages  and  disgusts  him.  Our 
literary  men  and  women  are  our  treasures  and  our  glory. 
They  are  the  fountain  of  our  purest  intellectual  delights,  and 
deserve  to  be  treated  as  such.  All  that  is  good  in  them  should 
have  abundant  recognition,  and  all  that  is  bad  should  be 
pointed  out  in  a  spirit  of  such  friendliness  and  courtesy  that 
they  should  be  glad  to  read  it  and  grateful  for  it.  If  many  of 
them  become  morbid,  sour,  resentful,  impatient  or  unpleas- 
antly self-asserting,  it  ought  to  be  remembered  on  their  be- 
half that  they  have  been  stung  by  injustice,  and  badgered 
by  malice,  and  made  contemptuous  by  discourteous  treatment. 
It  is  not  unjust  to  say  that  all  criticism  which  does  not  bear 
the  front  of  personal  courtesy  and  kindness  and  the  warrant 
of  a  careful  conscience  is  a  curse  to  literature,  and  to  the  noble 
guild  upon  which  we  depend  for  its  production. 


THE  POPULAR  LECTURE. 

STAR- LECTURING. 

Mr.  Proctor  does  not  need  to  look  upward  to  find  the  star- 
depths.  The  phrase  may  fitly  characterize  American  society, 
which  consists  of  stars  and  blank  spaces.  We  run  our  politics 
on  the  starring  system.  A  man  becomes  a  star,  and  we  make 
him  president.  The  "red  light  of  Mars"  is  the  favorite  color. 
Not  statesmanship,  not  personal  character,  not  intellectual  cul- 
ture, not  eminent  knowledge,  not  anything  and  not  any  combi- 
nation of  things  that  constitute  superlative  fitness,  fixes  the 
American  choice  for  the  chief  magistracy.  The  star  which, 
for  the  moment,  can  attract  the  greatest  number  of  eyes, 
becomes  the  lord  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  Votes  must 
be  had  at  any  sacrifice ;  and  votes  can  only  be  counted  on  for 
stars.  Availability  is  the  political  watch -word,  and  such  states- 
manship as  we  get  is  that  with  which  we  manage  to  surround 
the  star  that  so  quickly  cools  and  flickers  in  its  new  and  alien 
atmosphere.  Political  rewards  do  not  go  where  they  belong; 
public  trust  is  not  reposed  in  the  best  men;  and  so  politics 
degenerate,  and  second  and  third  rate  men  are  everywhere 
uppermost.  The  starring  system  in  politics  is  a  failure.  It  is 
bad  for  the  country,  it  is  bad  for  politics ;  it  is  a  discourage- 
ment to  personal  and  political  worth ;  it  is  a  nuisance. 

The  starring  system  in  theatricals  is  even  more  obviously 


7  4  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

destructive  to  all  that  is  worthy  in  the  popular  drama.  We  go 
to  a  theatre,  not  to  witness  a  play,  but  to  see  Booth,  or  Joe 
Jefferson,  or  some  other  star.  The  opera  is  nothing  without 
Kellogg,  or  Patti,  or  Nilsson,  or  some  miraculous  tenor  who 
to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is  not.  The  orchestras, — trained, 
laborious,  patient,  admirable,— pass  for  nothing.  The  choruses 
are  not  thought  so  much  of  as  an  orchestrion  would  be.  The 
great  mass  of  singers  and  players  who  sustain  the  minor  parts, 
have  no  more  consideration  than  puppets.  What  is  the  conse- 
quence? The  money  is  mainly  absorbed  by  the  stars,  who 
shine  the  brighter  in  a  sky  of  mediocrity  or  absolute  inferiority. 
So  long  as  the  starring  system  prevails,  mediocrity  will  be  the 
rule.  Stars  must  have  space,  to  be  seen  ;  and  we  have  had  for 
years,  in  the  theatrical  world,  nothing  but  stars  and  spaces — 
the  latter,  wide.  A  first-class  drama,  well  presented  in  every 
part,  is  not  often  witnessed  in  New  York;  and  for  this  fact 
the  starring  system  is  alone  responsible.  An  actor  nowadays 
can  get  no  consideration  except  as  a  star,  and,  to  succeed,  he 
is  often  obliged  to  confine  himself  to  a  single  play. 

How  has  the  starring  system  worked  upon  the  platform  ? 
It  has  been  tried  pretty  thoroughly  for  the  last  five  years,  and 
the  results  ought  to  be,  and  are,  apparent.  Ten  and  fifteen 
years  ago,  a  course  of  lectures  consisted  of  eight  or  ten  dis- 
courses on  topics  of  popular  interest,  or  social  and  political 
questions  of  public  moment.  They  were  prosperous,  well 
attended,  and  profitable  in  many  ways.  Then  came  the  star- 
fever.  Men  were  summoned  to  the  platform  simply  because 
they  would  draw,  and  not  because  the  people  expecte  1  instruc- 
tion or  inspiration  from  them.  A  notoriety  had  only  to  rise,  tc 
be  summoned  at  once  to  the  platform.  If  he  could  lift  a  great 
many  kegs  of  nails ;  if  he  was  successful  as  a  showman ;  if  he 
was  a  literary  buffoon,  and  sufficiently  expert  in  cheap  orthogra- 


THE  POPULAR  LECTURE. 


75 


phy ;  in  short,  if  he  had  been  anything,  or  had  done  anything,  to 
make  himself  an  object  of  curiosity  to  the  crowd,  he  was  re- 
garded as  a  star,  and  called  at  once  into  the  lecture  field,  for  the 
single  purpose  of  swelling  the  receipts  at  the  door.  Of  course 
the  stars  called  for  high  prices,  and  under  high  prices  the  number 
of  lectures  given  in  a  course  was  cut  down.  The  people  who 
came  to  bask  in  the  blaze,  finding  too  often  only  a  twinkle,  and 
sometimes  only  a  fizzle,  that  left  an  unpleasant  odor,  became 
disgusted,  and  the  best  of  them, — the  very  men  and  women 
upon  whom  the  whole  lecture  system  relied  for  steady  prosper- 
ity,— left  the  lecture-room  altogether.  Still  the  starring  system 
went  on,  with  a  new  agency  to  push  it,  established  by  the 
lecture  bureaus.  Men  were  invited  to  come  from  England, 
and  promised  great  results.  Some  of  these  have  been  genuine 
accessions  to  the  corps  of  good  lecturers,  while  many  have 
proved  to  be  sorry  failures.  Many  a  famous  name, "  far-fetched 
and  dear-bought,"  has  shone  upon  the  list  for  a  season,  never 
to  be  recalled  and  always  to  be  remembered  with  disappoint- 
ment. The  bureaus  have  pushed  and  puffed  their  pets, — both 
imported  and  domestic, — until  lecture  committees  have  ceased 
to  believe  in  them  altogether. 

And  now,  what  is  the  condition  of  the  platform  ?  In  the 
large  towns,  where  they  have  been  able  to  get  "  the  stars,"  it  is 
difficult  to  get  a  first-rate  audience  together  on  any  night,  and 
still  more  difficult  to  maintain  a  steady,  prosperous  course  of 
lectures.  In  the  smaller  towns,  where  want  of  funds  has  com- 
pelled them  to  dispense  with  the  stars,  the  system  was  never 
more  prosperous  than  it  is  to-day.  In  New  England  and 
New  York,  generally,  the  towns  with  20,000  inhabitants  and 
upwards,  have  difficulty  in  sustaining  a  course  of  lectures, 
while  there  are  many  towns  of  less  than  five  thousand  people 
that  maintain  a  good  course  every  winter,  and  make  money 
by  it. 


7 6  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

If  there  is  anything  in  the  lecture  system  worth  saving,  let 
us  save  it.  Those  who  know  what  it  used  to  be,  will  be  glad 
to  see  it  restored  to  its  old  position,  and  if  they  have  studied 
its  history,  they  will  conclude,  with  us,  that  the  starring  system 
must  be  stopped.  The  lecture-room  must  cease  to  be  the 
show-room  of  fresh  notorieties,  at  high  prices.  Men  must  be 
called  to  lecture  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  have  something 
to  say.  The  courses  must  be  lengthened,  and  made  in  them- 
selves valuable.  The  pushing  by  interested  bureaus  of  untried 
men  must  be  ignored  or  resisted.  Men  must  be  called  to 
teach  because  they  can  teach,  and  not  because  they  can  do 
something  else.  The  lecture  must  cease  to  be  regarded  simply 
as  an  entertainment.  Wherever  it  has  been  so  regarded  and 
so  managed,  the  system  has  gone  down,  and  wherever  the 
stock  lecturer  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  star,  the  audiences 
have  gradually  dwindled  until  it  has  become  almost  impossible 
to  sustain  a  course  of  lectures  at  all.  Stars  have  been  so 
much  in  fashion  that  we  have  establishments  now  for  the  man- 
ufacture of  fictitious  reputations,  and  these  establishments  must 
go  under.  They  always  were  an  impertinence,  and  they  have 
become  a  nuisance.  The  lecture  is  a  necessity.  Let  us  restore 
the  institution  to  its  old  footing  of  direct  friendly  relations 
between  the  lecturers  and  the  lyceum,  and  give  no  man  access 
to  the  platform  who  does  not  come  there  in  a  legitimate  way, 
and  who  is  not  held  there  because  he  has  something  valuable 
to  say.  No  system  can  stand  when  its  best  and  most  reliable 
workers  are  pinched  in  their  prices,  that  those  may  be  over- 
paid, who  not  only  bring  no  strength  to  it,  "but  weaken  it  in 
its  finances  and  in  its  hold  upon  the  respect  and  affection  of 
the  people. 


THE  POPULAR  LECTURE.  77 

TRIFLERS  ON  THE  PLATFORM. 

There  was  a  time  in  the  history  of  our  popular  "lecture  sys- 
tem" when  a  lecture  was  a  lecture.  The  men  who  appeared 
before  the  lyceums  were  men  who  had  something  to  say. 
Grave  discussions  of  important  topics;  social,  political,  and 
literary  essays;  instructive  addresses  and  spirited  appeals — 
these  made  up  a  winter's  course  of  popular  lectures.  Now,  a 
lecture  may  be  any  string  of  nonsense  that  any  literary  mount- 
ebank can  find  an  opportunity  to  utter.  Artemus  Ward  "lec- 
tured ; "  and  he  was  right  royally  paid  for  acting  the  literary 
buffoon.  He  has  had  many  imitators;  and  the  damage  that 
he  and  they  have  inflicted  upon  the  institution  of  the  lyceum 
is  incalculable.  The  better  class  that  once  attended  the  lecture 
courses  have  been  driven  away  in  disgust,  and  among  the 
remainder  such  a  greed  for  inferior  entertainments  has  been 
excited  that  lecture  managers  have  become  afraid  to  offer  a 
first-class,  old-fashioned  course  of  lectures  to  the  public  patron- 
age. Accordingly,  one  will  find  upon  nearly  every  list,  offered 
by  the  various  committees  and  managers,  the  names  of  triflers 
and  buffoons  who  are  a  constant  disgrace  to  the  lecturing 
guild,  and  a  constantly  degrading  influence  upon  the  public 
taste.  Their  popularity  is  usually  exhausted  by  a  single  per- 
formance, but  they  rove  from  platform  to  platform,  retailing 
their  stale  jokes,  and  doing  their  best  and  worst  to  destroy  the 
institution  to  which  they  cling  for  a  hearing  and  a  living. 

This  thing  was  done  in  better  taste  formerly.  "  Drollerists  " 
and  buffoons  and  "Yankee  comedians"  were  in  the  habit  of 
advertising  themselves.  They  entered  a  town  with  no  indorse- 
ment but  their  own,  and  no  character  but  that  which  they 
assumed.  They  attracted  a  low  crowd  of  men  and  boys  as 
coarse  and  frivolous  as  themselves,  and  the  better  part  of  society 
never  came  in  contact  with  them.  A  woman  rarely  entered 


73  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

their  exhibitions,  and  a  lady  never;  yet  they  were  clever  men 
with  quite  as  much  wit  and  common  decency  as  some  of  the 
literary  wags  that  are  now  commended  to  lecture  committees 
by  the  bureaus,  and  presented  by  the  committees  to  a  confiding 
public. 

There  are,  and  have  been  for  years,  men  put  forward  as 
lecturers  whose  sole  distinction  was  achieved  by  spelling  the 
weakest  wit  in  the  worst  way — men  who  never  aimed  at  any 
result  but  a  laugh,  and  who,  if  they  could  not  secure  this 
result  by  an  effort  in  the  line  of  decency,  did  not  hesitate 
at  any  means,  however  low,  to  win  the  coveted  response.  If 
there  is  any  difference  between  performers  of  this  sort  and 
negro  minstrels,  strolling  "  drollerists,"  who  do  not  even  claim 
to  be  respectable,  we  fail  to  detect  it ;  and  it  is  high  time  that 
the  managers  of  our  lecture  courses  had  left  them  from  their 
lists,  and  ceased  to  insult  the  public  by  the  presumption  that  it 
can  be  interested  in  their  silly  utterances. 

It  would  be  claimed,  we  suppose,  by  any  one  who  should 
undertake  to  defend  the  employment  of.  these  men,  that  they 
draw  large  houses.  Granted :  they  do  this  once,  and  perhaps 
do  something  to  replenish  the  managerial  exchequer;  but  they 
invariably  send  away  their  audiences  disappointed  and  dis- 
gusted. No  thoughtful  or  sensible  man  can  devote  a  whole 
evening  to  the  poorest  kind  of  nonsense  without  losing  a  little 
of  his  self-respect,  and  feeling  that  he  has  spent  his  money  for 
that  which  does  not  satisfy.  The  reaction  is  always  against 
the  system,  and  in  the  long  run  the  managers  find  themselves 
obliged  to  rely  upon  a  lower  and  poorer  set  of  patrons,  who 
are  not  long  in  learning  that  even  they  can  be  better  suited  by 
the  coarse  comedy  of  the  theatre,  and  the  dances  and  songs 
of  the  negro  minstrel.  Nothing  has  been  permanently  gained 
in  any  instance  to  the  lyceum  and  lecture  system  by  degrading 


THE  POPULAR  LECTURE. 


79 


the  character  of  the  performances  offered  to  the  public.  A 
temporary  financial  success  consequent  upon  this  policy  is 
always  followed  by  dissatisfaction  and  loss,  and  it  ought  to  be. 
Professional  jesters  and  triflers  are  professional  nuisances,  who 
ought  not  to  be  tolerated  by  any  man  of  common  sense  in 
terested  in  the  elevation  and  purification  of  the  public  taste. 

But  shall  not  lyceums  and  the  audiences  they  gather  have 
the  privilege  of  laughing?  Certainly.  Mr.  Cough's  audi- 
ences have  no  lack  of  opportunity  to  laugh,  and  there  an 
others  who  have  his  faculty  of  exciting  the  mirthfulness  of 
those  who  throng  to  hear  them ;  but  Mr.  Cough  is  a  gentle- 
man who  is  never  low,  and  who  is  never  without  a  good  object. 
He  is  an  earnest,  Christian  man,  whose  whole  life  is  a  lesson 
of  toil  and  self-sacrifice.  Mr.  Cough  is  not  a  trifler;  and  the 
simple  reason  that  he  continues  to  draw  full  houses  from  year 
to  year  is,  that  he  is  not  a  trifler.  Wit,  humor,  these  are  never 
out  of  order  in  a  lecture,  provided  they  season  good  thinking 
and  assist  manly  purpose.  Wit  and  humor  are  always  good  as 
condiments,  but  never  as  food.  The  stupidest  book  in  the 
world  is  a  book  of  jokes,  and  the  stupidest  man  in  the  world 
is  one  who  surrenders  himself  to  the  single  purpose  of  making 
men  laugh.  It  is  a  purpose  that  wholly  demoralizes  and  de- 
grades him,  and  makes  him  unfit  to  be  a  teacher  of  anything. 
The  honor  that  has  been  shown  to  literary  triflers  upon  the 
platform  has  had  the  worst  effect  upon  the  young.  It  has 
disseminated  slang,  and  vitiated  the  taste  of  the  impressible, 
and  excited  unworthy  ambition  and  emulation.  When  our 
lyceums,  on  which  we  have  been  wont  to  rely  for  good  in- 
fluences in  literary  matters,  at  last  become  agents  of  buffoonery 
and  low  literary  entertainments,  they  dishonor  their  early 
record  and  the  idea  which  gave  them  birth.  Let  them  banish 
triflers  from  the  platform,  and  go  back  to  the  plan  which  gave 


8o  El 'ER Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

them  their  original  prosperity  and  influence,  and  they  will  find 
no  reason  to  complain  of  a  lack  of  patronage,  or  the  loss 
of  interest  on  the  part  of  the  public  in  their  entertainments. 


PERSONAL  DANGERS. 

MOTHS  IN  THE  CANDLE. 

Every  moth  learns  for  itself  that  the  candle  burns.  Every 
night,  while  the  candle  lasts,  the  slaughter  goes  on,  and  leaves 
its  wingless  and  dead  around  it.  The  light  is  beautiful,  and 
warm,  and  attractive;  and,  unscared  by  the  dead,  the  foolish 
creatures  rush  into  the  flames,  and  drop,  hopelessly  singed, 
their  little  lives  despoiled. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  men  have  reason,  and  a  moral 
sense.  It  has  been  supposed  that  they  observe,  draw  con- 
clusions, and  learn  by  experience.  Indeed,  they  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  looking  down  upon  the  animal  world  as  a  group 
of  inferior  beings,  and  as  subjects  of  commiseration  on  account 
of  their  defehselessness ;  yet  there  is  a  large  class  of  men,  re- 
produced by  every  passing  generation,  that  do  exactly  what 
the  moths  do,  and  die  exactly  as  the  moths  die.  They  learn 
nothing  by  observation  or  experience.  They  draw  no  con- 
clusions, save  those  which  are  fatal  to  themselves.  Around  a 
certain  class  of  brilliant  temptations  they  gather,  night  after 
night,  and  with  singed  wings  or  lifeless  bodies,  they  strew  the 
ground  around  them.  No  instructions,  no  expostulations,  no 
observation  of  ruin,  no  sense  of  duty,  no  remonstrances  of 
conscience,  have  any  effect  upon  them.  If  they  were  moths 
in  fact,  they  could  not  be  sillier  or  more  obtuse.  They  are,  in- 
6 


8  2    .  EVERY  DAY  TOPICS. 

deed,  so  far  under  the  domination  of  their  animal  natures  that 
they  act  like  animals,  and  sacrifice  themselves  in  flames  that 
the  world's  experience  has  shown  to  be  fatal. 

A  single  passion,  which  need  not  be  named,— further  than 
to  say  that,  when  hallowed  by  love  and  a  legitimate  gift  of  life 
to  life,  it  is  as  pure  as  any  passion  of  the  soul, — is  one  of  the 
candles  around  which  the  human  moths  lie  in  myriads  of  dis- 
gusting deaths.  If  anything  has  been  proved  by  the  observa- 
tion and  experience  of  the  world  it  is  that  licentiousness,  and 
all  illicit  gratification  of  the  passion  involved  in  it,  are  killing 
sins  against  a  man's  own  nature, — that  by  it  the  wings  are 
singed  not  only,  but  body  and  soul  are  degraded  and  spoiled. 
Out  of  all  illicit  indulgence  come  weakness,  a  perverted  moral 
sense,  degradation  of  character,  gross  beastliness,  benumbed 
sensibilities,  a  disgusting  life,  and  a  disgraceful  death.  Before 
its  baleful  fire  the  sanctity  of  womanhood  fades  away,  the  ro- 
mance of  life  dies,  and  the  beautiful  world  loses  all  its  charm. 
The  lives  wrecked  upon  the  rock  of  sensuality  are  strewn  in 
every  direction.  Again  and  again,  with  endless  repetition, 
young  men  yield  to  the  song  of  the  siren  that  beguiles  them  to 
their  death.  They  learn  nothing,  they  see  nothing,  they  know 
nothing  but  their  wild  desire,  and  on  they  go  to  destruction 
and  the  devil. 

Every  young  man  who  reads  this  article  has  two  lives  before 
him.  He  may  choose  either.  He  may  throw  himself  away  on 
a  few  illegitimate  delights  which  cover  his  brow  with  shame  in 
the  presence  of  his  mother,  and  become  an  old  man  before  his 
time,  with  all  the  wine  drained  out  of  his  life ;  or  he  may 
grow  up  into  a  pure,  strong  manhood,  held  in  healthy  relation 
to  all  the  joys  that  pertain  to  that  high  estate.  He  may  be  a 
beast  in  his  heart,  or  he  may  have  a  wife  whom  he  worships, 
children  whom  he  delights  in,  self-respect  which  enables  him 


PERSONAL  DANGERS.  83 

to  meet  unabashed  the  noblest  woman,  and  an  undisputed 
place  in  good  society.  He  may  have  a  dirty  imagination,  or 
one  that  hates  and  spurns  all  impurity  as  both  disgusting  and 
poisonous.  In  brief,  he  may  be  a  man,  with  a  man's  powers 
and  immunities,  or  a  sham  of  a  man, — a  whited  sepulchre, — 
conscious  that  he  carries  with  him  his  own  dead  bones,  and  all 
uncleanness.  It  is  a  matter  entirely  of  choice.  He  knows 
what  one  life  is,  and  where  it  ends.  He  knows  the  essential 
quality  and  certain  destiny  of  the  other.  The  man  who  says 
he  cannot  control  himself  not  only  lies,  but  places  his  Maker 
in  blame.  He  can  control  himself,  and,  if  he  does  not,  he  is 
both  a  fool  and  a  beast.  The  sense  of  security  and  purity  and 
self-respect  that  come  of  continence,  entertained  for  a  single 
day,  is  worth  more  than  the  illicit  pleasures  of  a  world  for 
all  time.  The  pure  in  heart  see  God  in  everything,  and  see 
him  everywhere,  and  they  are  supremely  blest. 

Wine  and  strong  drink  form  another  candle  in  which  mil- 
lions of  men  have  singed  themselves,  and  destroyed  both  body 
and  soul.  Here  the  signs  of  danger  are  more  apparent  than 
in  the  other  form  of  sensuality,  because  there  is  less  secrecy. 
The  candle  burns  in  open  space,  where  all  men  can  see  it. 
Law  sits  behind,  and  sanctions  its  burning.  It  pays  a  princely 
revenue  to  the  government.  Women  flaunt  their  gauzes  in  it. 
Clergymen  sweep  their  robes  through  it.  Respectability  uses 
it  to  light  its  banquets.  In  many  regions  of  this  country  it  is 
a  highly  respectable  candle.  Yet,  every  year,  sixty  thousand 
persons  in  this  country  die  of  intemperance;  and  when  we 
think  of  the  blasted  lives  that  live  in  want  and  misery — of 
wives  in  despair,  of  loves  bruised  and  blotted  out,  of  children 
disgraced,  of  alms-houses  filled,  of  crimes  committed  through 
its  influence,  of  industry  extinguished,  and  of  disease  engen- 
dered— and  remember  that  this  has  been  going  on  for  thousands 


34  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPfCS. 

of  years,  wherever  wine  has  been  known,  what  are  we  to 
think  of  the  men  who  still  press  into  the  fire  ?  Have  they  any 
more  sense  than  the  moths  ?  It  is  almost  enough  to  shake  a 
man's  faith  in  immortality  to  learn  that  he  belongs  to  a  race 
that  manifests  so  little  sense,  and  such  hopeless  recklessness. 

There  is  just  one  way  of  safety,  and  only  one;  and  a  young 
man  who  stands  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  can  choose 
whether  he  will  walk  in  it,  or  in  the  way  of  danger.  There  is 
a  notion  abroad  among  men  that  wine  is  good, — that  when 
properly  used  it  has  help  in  it, — that  in  a  certain  way  it  is  food, 
or  a  help  in  the  digestion  of  food.  We  believe  that  no  greater 
or  more  fatal  hallucination  ever  possessed  the  world,  and  that 
none  so  great  ever  possessed  it  for  so  long  a  time. 

Wine  is  a  medicine,  and  men  would  take  no  more  of  it  than 
of  any  other  medicine  if  it  were  not  pleasant  in  its  taste,  and 
agreeable  in  its  first  effects.  The  men  who  drink  it,  drink  it 
because  they  like  it.  The  theories  as  to  its  healthfulness  come 
afterwards.  The  world  cheats  itself,  and  tries  to  cheats  itself 
in  this  thing ;  and  the  priests  who  prate  of  "  using  this  world 
as  not  abusing  it,"  and  the  chemists  who  claim  a  sort  of  nu- 
tritious property  in  alcohol  which  never  adds  to  tissue  (!)  and 
the  men  who  make  a  jest  of  water-drinking,  all  know  per- 
fectly well  that  wine  and  strong  drink  always  have  done  more 
harm  than  good  in  the  world,  and  always  will  until  that  mil- 
lenium  comes,  whose  feet  are  constantly  tripped  from  under  it 
by  the  drunkards  that  lie  prone  in  its  path.  The  millenium 
with  a  grog-shop  at  every  corner  is  just  as  impossible  as  secu- 
rity with  a  burglar  at  every  window,  or  in  every  room  of  the 
house.  All  men  know  that  drink  is  a  curse,  yet  young  men 
sport  around  it  as  if  there  were  something  very  desirable  in 
it,  and  sport  until  they  are  hopelessly  singed,  and  then  join 
the  great,  sad  army  which,  with  undiminished  numbers,  presses 
on  to  its  certain  death. 


PERSONAL  DANGERS.  gt, 

We  do  not  like  to  become  an  exhorter  in  these  columns, 
but,  if  it  were  necessary,  we  would  plead  with  young  men 
upon  weary  knees  to  touch  not  the  accursed  thing.  Total  ab- 
stinence, now  and  forever,  is  the  only  guaranty  in  existence 
against  a  drunkard's  life  and  death,  and  there  is  no  good  that 
can  possibly  come  to  a  man  by  drinking.  Keep  out  of  tru 
candle.  It  will  always  singe  your  wings,  or  destroy  you. 

THE  YOUNG  IN  GREAT  CITIES. 

The  world  learns  its 'lessons  slowly.  Much  of  the  world 
does  not  learn  its  lessons  at  all.  The  young  are  everywhere 
growing  up  amid  the  ruins  of  other  lives,  apparently  without 
inquiring  or  caring  for  the  reasons  of  the  disasters  to  life,  for- 
tune and  reputation  that  are  happening,  or  have  happened, 
everywhere  around  them.  One  man,  with  great  trusts  of 
money  in  his  hands,  betrays  the  confidence  of  the  public,  be- 
comes a  hopeless  defaulter,  and  blows  his  brains  out.  Another, 
led  on  by  love  of  power  and  place,  is  degraded  at  last  to  a 
poor  demagogue,  without  character  or  influence.  Another, 
through  a  surrender  of  himself  to  sensuality,  becomes  a  dis 
gusting  beast,  with  heart  and  brain  more  foul  than  the  nests 
of  unclean  birds.  Another,  by  tasting  and  tasting  and  tasting 
of  the  wine-cup,  becomes  a  drunkard  at  last,  and  dies  in  hor- 
rible delirium,  or  lives  to  be  a  curse  to  wife,  children,  and 
friends.  There  is  an  army  of  these  poor  wretches  in  every 
large  city  in  the  land  dying  daily,  and  daily  re-enforced.  A 
young  girl,  loving  "not  wisely,  but  too  well,"  yields  herself  to 
a  seducer  who  ruins  and  then  forsakes  her  to  a  life  of  shame 
and  a  death  of  despair.  Not  one  girl,  but  thousands  of  girls 
yearly,  so  that,  though  a  great  company  of  those  whose  robes 
are  soiled  beyond  cleansing  hide  themselves  in  the  grave  during 
every  twelve-month,  another  great  company  of  the  pure  drop  to 


36  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

their  places,  and  keep  filled  to  repletion  the  ranks  of  prostitu 
tion.  Again  and  again,  in  instances  beyond  counting,  are 
these  tragedies  repeated  in  the  full  presence  of  the  rising  gen- 
eration, and  yet  it  seems  to  grow  no  wiser.  Nothing  has  been 
more  fully  demonstrated  than  that  the  first  steps  of  folly  and 
sin  are  fraught  with  peril.  Nothing  has  been  better  proved 
than  that  temperate  drinking  is  always  dangerous,  and  that  ex- 
cessive drinking  is  always  ruinous.  Nothing  is  better  known 
than  that  a  man  cannot  consort  with  lewd  women  for  an  hour 
without  receiving  a  taint  that  a  whole  life  of  repentance  can- 
not wholly  eradicate.  Since  time  began  have  women  been  led 
astray  by  the  same  promises,  the  same  pledges,  the  same  empty 
rewards.  If  young  men  and  young  women  could  possibly 
learn  wisdom,  it  would  seem  as  if  they  might  win  it  in  a  single 
day,  by  simply  using  their  eyes  and  thinking  upon  what  they 
see.  Yet  in  this  great  city  of  New  York,  and  in  all  the  great 
cities  of  the  country,  young  men  and  young  women  are  all 
the  time  repeating  the  mistakes  of  those  around  them  who  are 
wrecked  in  character  and  fortune.  The  young  man  keeps  his 
wine  bottle,  and  seeks  resorts  where  deceived  and  ruined  women 
lie  in  wait  for  prey,  knowing  perfectly  well,  if  he  knows  any- 
thing, or  has  ever  used  fairly  the  reason  with  which  Heaven 
has  endowed  him,  that  he  is  in  the  broad  road  to  perdition, — 
that  there  is  before  him  a  life  of  disgust  and  a  death  of  horror. 
When  the  results  of  certain  courses  of  conduct  and  certain 
indulgences  are  so  well  known  as  these  to  which  we  allude,  it 
seems  strange  that  any  can  enter  upon  them.  Every  young 
man  knows  that  if  he  never  tastes  a  glass  of  alcoholic  drink  he 
will  never  become,  or  stand  in  danger  of  becoming,  a  drunkard. 
Every  young  man  knows  that  if  he  preserves  a  chaste  youth, 
and  shuns  the  society  of  the  lewd,  he  can  carry  to  the  woman 
whom  he  loves  a  self-respect  which  is  invaluable,  a  past  freely 


PERSONAL  DANGERS.  87 

open  to  her  questioning  gaze,  and  the  pure  physical  vitality 
which  shall  be  the  wealth  of  another  generation.  He  knows 
that  the  rewards  of  chastity  are  ten  thousand  times  greater 
than  those  of  criminal  indulgence.  He  knows  that  nothing  is 
lost  and  everything  is  gained  by  a  life  of  manly  sobriety  and 
self-denial.  He  knows  all  this,  if  he  has  had  his  eyes  open, 
and  has  exercised  his  reason  in  even  a  small  degree ;  and  yet 
he  joins  the  infatuated  multitude  and  goes  straight  to  the  devil. 
We  know  that  we  do  not  exaggerate  when  we  say  that  New 
York  has  thousands  of  young  men,  with  good  mothers  and 
pure  sisters,  who,  if  their  lives  should  be  uncovered,  could 
never  look  those  mothers  and  sisters  in  the  face  again.  They 
are  full  of  fears  of  exposure,  and  conscious  of  irreparable  loss. 
Their  lives  are  masked  in  a  thousand  ways.  They  live  a  daily 
lie.  They  are  the  victims  and  slaves  of  vices  which  are  just 
as  certain  to  cripple  or  kill  them,  unless  at  once  and  forever 
forsaken,  as  they  live.  There  are  thousands  of  others  who, 
now  pure  and  good,  will  follow  evil  example  unwarned  by 
what  they  see,  and  within  a  year  will  be  walking  in  the  road 
that  leads  evermore  downward. 

One  tires  of  talking  to  fools,  and  falls  back  in  sorrow  that 
hell  and  destruction  are  never  full — in  sorrow  that  men  cannot 
or  will  not  learn  that  there  is  but  one  path  to  an  honorable, 
peaceful,  prosperous,  and  successful  life,  and  that  all  others 
lead  more  or  less  directly  to  ruin. 

THE  GOOD  FELLOW. 

We  wonder  if  "The  Good  Fellow"  ever  mistrusts  his  good- 
ness, or  realizes  how  selfish,  how  weak,  how  unprincipled,  and 
how  bad  a  fellow  he  truly  is.  He  never  regards  the  conse- 
quences of  his  acts  as  they  relate  to  others,  and  especially 
those  of  his  family  friends.  Little  fits  of  generosity  towards 


88  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

them  are  supposed  to  atone  for  all  his  misdeeds,  while  he 
inflicts  upon  them  the  disgraces,  inconveniences,  and  burdens 
which  attend  a  selfishly  dissolute  life.  The  invitation  of  a 
friend,  the  taunts  of  good-natured  boon  companions,  the  temp 
tations  of  jolly  fellowship,  these  are  enough  to  overcome  all 
his  scruples,  if  he  has  any  scruples,  and  to  lead  him  to  ignore 
all  the  possible  results  to  those  who  love  him  best,  and  who 
must  care  for  him  in  sickness  and  all  the  unhappy  phases 
of  his  selfish  life. 

The  Good  Fellow  is  notoriously  careless  of  his  family.  Any 
outside  friend  can  lead  him  whithersoever  he  will — into  de- 
bauchery, idleness,  vagabondage.  He  can  ask  a  favor,  and  it 
is  done.  He  can  invite  him  into  disgrace,  and  he  goes.  He 
can  direct  him  into  a  job  of  dirty  work,  and  he  straightway 
undertakes  it.  He  can  tempt  him  into  any  indulgence  which 
may  suit  his  vicious  whims,  and,  regardless  of  wife,  mother, 
sister,  who  may  be  shortened  in  their  resources  so  as  legiti- 
mately to  claim  his  protecting  hand, — regardless  of  honorable 
father  and  brother, — he  will  spend  his  money,  waste  his  time, 
and  make  himself  a  subject  of  constant  and  painful  anxiety,  or 
an  unmitigated  nuisance  to  those  alone  who  care  a  straw  for 
him.  What  pay  does  he  receive  for  this  shameful  sacrifice  ? 
The  honor  of  being  considered  a  "  Good  Fellow,"  with  a  set 
of  men  who  would  not  spend  a  cent  for  him  if  they  should  see 
him  starving,  and  who  would  laugh  over  his  calamities.  When 
he  dies  in  the  ditch,  as  he  is  most  likely  to  die,  they  breathe  a 
sigh  over  the  swill  they  drink,  and  say,  "  after  all,  he  was  a 
Good  Fellow." 

The  feature  of  the  Good  Fellow's  case  which  makes  it  well 
nigh  hopeless,  is,  that  he  thinks  he  is  a  Good  Fellow.  He 
thinks  that  his  pliable  disposition,  his  readiness  to  do  other 
good  fellows  a  service,  and  his  jolly  ways,  atone  for  all  his 


PERSONAL  DANGERS.  89 

faults.  His  love  of  praise  is  fed  by  his  companions,  and  thus 
his  self-complacency  is  nursed.  Quite  unaware  that  his  good 
fellowship  is  the  result  of  his  weakness ;  quite  unaware  that 
his  sacrifice  of  honor,  and  the  honor  and  peace  of  his  family, 
for  the  sake  of  outside  praise  is  the  offspring  of  the  most 
heartless  selfishness;  quite  unaware  that  his  disregard  of  the 
interests  and  feelings  of  those  who  are  bound  to  him  by  the 
closest  ties  of  blood,  is  the  demonstration  of  his  utterly  un- 
principled character;  he  carries  an  unruffled,  or  a  jovial  front, 
while  hearts  bleed  or  break  around  him.  Of  all  the  scamps 
society  knows,  the  traditional  good  fellow  is  the  most  despica- 
ble. A  man  who  for  the  sake  of  his  own  selfish  delights,  or 
the  sake  of  the  praise  of  careless  or  unprincipled  friends, 
makes  his  home  a  scene  of  anxiety  and  torture,  and  degrades 
and  disgraces  all  who  are  associated  with  him  in  his  home  life, 
is,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not,  a  brute.  If  a  man  cannot  be 
loyal  to  his  home,  and  to  those  who  love  him,  then  he  cannot 
be  loyal  to  anything  that  is  good.  There  is  something  mean 
beyond  description,  in  any  man  who  cares  more  for  anything 
in  this  world  .than  the  honor,  the  confidence,  and  love  of  his 
family.  There  is  something  radically  wrong  in  such  a  man, 
and  the  quicker  and  the  more  thoroughly  he  realizes  it,  in  a 
humiliation  which  bends  him  to  the  earth  in  shame  and  con- 
fusion, the  better  for  him.  The  traditional  good  fellow  is  a 
bad  fellow  from  the  crown  of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his  foot. 
He  is  as  weak  as  a  baby,  vain  as  a  peacock,  selfish  as  a  pig, 
and  as  unprincipled  as  a  thief.  He  has  not  one  redeeming 
trait  upon  which  a  reasonable  self-respect  can  be  built  and 
braced. 

Give  us  the  bad  fellow,  who  stands  by  his  personal  and  fam- 
ily honor,  who  sticks  to  his  own,  who  does  not  "treat"  his 
friends  while  his  home  is  in  need  of  the  money  he  wastes,  and 


g0  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

who  gives  himself  no  indulgence  of  good  fellowship  at  the  ex- 
pense of  duty!  A  man  with  whom  the  approving  smile  of  a 
wife,  or  mother,  or  sister,  does  not  weigh  more  than  a  thousand 
crazy  bravos  of  boon  companions,  is  just  no  man  at  all. 

\ 

EASY  LESSONS  FROM  HARD  LIVES. 

No  man  ever  died  a  more  natural  death  than  James  Fisk, 
Jr. ,  excepting,  perhaps,  Judas  Iscariot.  When  the  devil  en- 
tered into  the  swine,  and  they  ran  violently  down  a  steep  place 
into  the  sea,  it  was  only  the  going  down  that  was  violent. 
The  death  that  came  was  natural  enough.  When  a  man 
pushes  his  personality  so  far  to  the  front  of  aggressive  and  im- 
pertinent schemes  of  iniquity  as  Fisk  did,  it  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  for  him  to  run  against  something  that  will 
hurt  him.  for  dangers  stand  thick  as  malice  and  revenge  can 
plant  them  in  the  path  of  godlessness  and  brutality.  The  cap- 
tain of  a  piratical  ship  who  undertakes,  in  addition  to  the  duties 
of  his  office,  to  serve  as  the  figure-head  of  his  own  vessel,  will 
receive,  naturally,  the  first  blow  when  she  drives  upon  the 
rocks.  Yet  we  join  in  the  general  sorrow  that  Mr.  Fisk  is 
dead,  for  it  is  possible  that  the  lesson  of  his  life  may  fail  to  be 
impressed  upon  Young  America  as  it  ought  to  be,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  sympathy  awakened  by  the  manner  of  his  taking 
off.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  a  pretty  universal  execration 
of  this  man's  memory  has  been  saved  to  him  through  the 
bloody  mercy  of  a  murder.  Yes,  people  talk  of  his  fund  of 
humor,  his  geniality,  his  generosity,  etc.,  etc.  If  this  kind  of 
talk  is  a  source  of  satisfaction  to  anybody,  of  course  he  will 
indulge  in  it;  but  Fisk  certainly  is  none  the  better  for  having 
been  killed.  He  was  a  bad  man — bold  and  shameless  and 
vulgar  in  his  badness — with  whom  no  gentleman  could  come 
in  contact  on  terms  of  familiar  intercourse  without  a  sense  of 


PERSONAL  DANGERS.  9 1 

degradation.  As  for  his  geniality,  that  was  as  natural  as  his 
death.  A  cow  that  has  spent  the  night  in  a  neighbor's  corn 
field,  and  stands  whisking  her  tail  and  ruminating  in  the  morn- 
ing sun,  is  one  of  the  blandest  and  most  genial  creatures  living. 
More  than  this,  she  does  not  care  particularly  who  drinks  the 
milk  she  has  won;  and  so  we  suppose  that  the  cow  too,  is  gen- 
erous as  well  as  genial! 

Ah !  we  forgot  about  Mr.  Tweed.  It  was  Mr.  Tweed  who 
was  a  great  man  a  little  while  ago,  was  it  not  ?  Mr.  Tweed 
had  power  in  his  hands  and  patronage  at  his  disposal,  and  had 
thousands  to  come  at  his  beck  and  go  at  his  bidding.  His 
name  was  a  tower  of  strength  on  a  great  many  Boards  of  Di- 
rectors. The  legislature  elected  by  the  State  managed  the 
State,  and  he  managed  the  legislature.  He  had  confederates 
in  iniquity  ;  but  he  was  "  The  Boss,"  and  his  will  was  impera- 
tive and  imperial.  Intrenched  behind  laws  that  were  the  prod- 
uct of  corruption,  ballots  that  could  be  increased  or  diminished 
at  will,  and  wealth  that  came  to  him  in  dark  and  mysterious 
ways,  he  dictated  the  administration  of  the  government  of  the 
first  city  of  the  new  world,  and  shaped  the  policy  of  the  proud- 
est State  of  the  Union.  His  path  was  strewn  with  luxuries 
for  himself  and  largess  for  his  friends.  He  lived  a  right  royal 
life,  and  the  power-worshiping  multitude  and  the  vulgar  seek- 
ers for  place  hung  around  him  with  abject  and  obsequious 
fawning.  Where  and  what  is  Mr.  Tweed  now  ?  Where  and 
what  are  his  confreres  ?  All,  from  the  Boss  down  to  the  mean- 
est menial  of  the  Ring,  are  writhing  and  shriveling  under  the 
heat  of  a  great  popular  indignation.  Their  deeds  of  darkness 
are  uncovered,  their  shameless  betrayals  of  trust  are  exposed, 
their  power  is  passed  hopelessly  from  their  hands,  and  a  great 
city,  which  once  felt  helpless  in  their  grasp,  has  risen  in  its 
might  and  crowded  them  all  to  their  utter  overthrow.  Every 


92  EVERY  DAY  TOPICS. 

man  who  was  a  participator  in  the  power  and  plunder  of  the 
King,  shakes  in  his  shoes  wherever  he  walks,  or  stands,  or 
skulks,  and  shows  what  it  is  to  have  a  fearful  looking  for  of 
judgment.  Good  men  everywhere  breathe  freer  for  this  revo- 
lution, and  the  republic  and  the  world  have  won  new  hope. 

The  overthrow  of  these  men — sudden,  awful,  complete — 
brings  home  to  young  men  a  much-needed  lesson.  A  short 
time  ago  there  were  thousands  of  young  men  regarding  with  an 
eager,  curious  gaze  the  careers  which  have  terminated  and  are 
terminating  so  tragically.  It  was  a  question  in  many  minds, 
alas!  whether  honesty  was  the  best  policy — whether  virtue 
paid — whether,  after  all  that  the  preachers  and  the  teachers 
might  say,  the  rascality  which  received  such  magnificent  re- 
wards at  the  hands  of  the  people  was  not  the  best  investment 
for  a  young  man  cherishing  a  desire  for  wealth  and  power. 
Who  can  begin  to  measure  the  effects  of  these  poisonous  ex- 
amples on  American  blood  ?  Let  every  man  who  wields  a  pen 
or  has  audience  with  the  public  do  what  he  can  to  counteract 
them,  by  calling  popular  attention  to  the  fact  that  these  men 
have  simply  met  the  natural  and  inevitable  fate  of  eminent  ras- 
cality. Honesty  is  the  best  policy.  Virtue  does  pay.  Purity/.? 
profitable.  Truthfulness  and  trustworthiness  are  infinitely  bet- 
ter than  basely  won  gold.  A  good  conscience  is  a  choicer  pos- 
session than  power.  When  a  man  sacrifices  personal  probity 
and  honor,  he  loses  everything  that  makes  any  earthly  posses- 
sion sweet.  When  these  men  were  dazzling  the  multitude  with 
their  shows  and  splendors,  they  knew  that  the  world  they  lived 
in  was  unsubstantial ;  and  we  have  no  question  that  they  ex- 
pected and  constantly  dreaded  the  day  of  discovery  and  retri- 
bution. We  do  not  believe  that  rascality  ever  paid  them  for  a 
day,  even  when  it  seemed  to  be  most  triumphantly  successful. 

The  storm  which  has  wrecked  these  men  has  cleared  the  sky. 


PERSONAL  DANGERS. 


93 


The  air  is  purer,  and  has  tone  and  inspiration  in  it.  Honesty 
is  at  a  premium  again,  and  honest  men  may  stand  before 
rogues  unabashed.  The  lesson  of  the  day  is  one  which  teaches 
young  men  that  lying  and  stealing  and  committing  adultery 
are  unprofitable  sins,  against  which  Nature  as  well  as  Revela- 
tion protests.  It  has  not  come  too  soon.  We  hope  that  it 
may  not  be  learned  too  late. 

PRIZES  FOR  SUICIDE. 

We  have  all  heard  of  the  testimony  of  the  Boston  physicians 
against  the  system  of  forcing  pursued  by  the  public  schools  of 
that  city, — of  its  tendency  to  produce  nervous  diseases,  and 
even,  in  some  instances,  insanity  itself.  The  testimony  is  so 
strong  and  positive,  and  so  unanimous,  that  it  must  be  accepted 
as  true.  Some  weeks  ago,  at  the  commencement  anniversary 
of  a  college,  not  in  Boston  or  New  England,  a  long  row  of 
young  men  was  called  up  to  receive  the  prizes  awarded  to 
various  forms  of  acquisition  and  scholarship.  It  was  pleasant 
to  see  their  shining  faces,  and  to  witness  their  triumph;  but 
the  pleasure  was  spoiled  by  the  patent  fact  that  their  victories 
had  been  won  at  the  expense  of  physical  vitality.  Physically, 
there  was  not  a  well-developed  man  among  them ;  and  many 
of  them  were  as  thin  as  if  they  had  just  arisen  from  a  bed  of 
sickness.  After  they  had  left  the  stage,  a  whole  class  was 
called  on,  to  receive  their  diplomas.  The  improvement  in  the 
average  physique  was  so  great  that  there  was  a  universal 
recognition  of  the  fact  by  the  audience ;  and  whispered  com- 
ments upon  it  went  around  the  assembly.  The  poorer  schol- 
ars were  undeniably  the  larger  and  healthier  men.  The  victors 
had  won  a  medal,  and  lost  that  which  is  of  more  value  than 
the  aggregate  of  all  the  gold  medals  ever  struck. 

There  is  one  lesson  which  teachers,  of  all  men  living,  are 


94  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

the  slowest  to  learn,  viz. :  that  scholarship  is  not  power,  and 
that  the  ability  to  acquire  is  not  the  ability  to  do.  The  rewards 
of  excellence  in  schools  and  colleges  are,  as  a  rule,  meted  out 
to  those  who  have  demonstrated  their  capacity  for  acquiring 
and  cramming.  The  practical  world  has  ceased  to  expect 
much  of  its  valedictorians  and  its  prize-medal  bearers.  Those 
whose  growth  of  power  is  slow,  and  whose  vitality  has  been 
unimpaired  by  excessive  study  during  the  years  of  physical 
development,  are  the  men  who  do,  and  who  always  have  done, 
the  work  of  the  world.  Thousands  of  educated  men  go  through 
life  with  feeble  health,  and  power  impaired,  and  limited  useful- 
ness, in  direct  consequence  of  their  early  triumphs,  or,  rather, 
of  the  sacrifices  by  which  those  triumphs  were  won. 

We  cannot  but  believe  that  prizes  do  more  harm  than  good, 
and  that  it  would  be  a  blessing  to  the  nation  if  they  could  be 
abolished  in  every  school  and  college  in  the  country.  They 
are  won  invariably  by  those  who  need  rather  to  be  restrained 
than  stimulated,  and  are  rarely  contended  for  by  those  whose 
sluggish  natures  alone  require  an  extraordinary  motive  to  exer- 
tion and  industry.  Their  award  is  based  upon  the  narrowest 
grounds.  Their  tendency  is  to  convey  a  false  idea  of  manly 
excellence,  and  to  discourage  the  development  of  the  stronger 
and  healthier  forms  of  physical  and  mental  life.  The  young 
man  who  goes  to  the  work  of  his  life  with  a  firm  and  healthy 
frame,  a  pure  heart,  and  the  ability  to  use  such  knowledge  as 
he  possesses,  is  worth  to  himself,  his  friends,  and  the  world,  a 
thousand  times  more  than  the  emaciated  scholar  whose  stom- 
ach is  the  abode  of  dyspepsia  and  whose  brain  is  a  lumber- 
house  of  unused  learning.  If  we  have  any  prizes  to  give,  let 
us  give  them  to  those  young  men  of  delicate  organizations 
and  the  power  of  easy  acquisition  who  restrain  their  ambition 
to  excel  in  scholarship,  and  build  up  for  themselves  a  body  fit 


PERSONAL  DANGERS. 


95 


to  give  their  minds  a  comfortable  dwelling-place  and  forcible 
and  facile  service.  These  would  be  prizes  worth  securing, 
and  they  would  point  to  the  highest  form  of  manhood  as  their 
aim  and  end. 

The  tendency  in  all  these  educational  matters  is  to  extremes. 
It  is  quite  as  much  so  in  England  as  here.  We  have  no  sympa- 
thy with  the  aim  which  is  fostered  in  some  institutions  of  making 
athletes  of  the  students.  Base-ball  matches,  and  rowing 
matches,  and  acrobatic  feats  are  well  enough  for  those  who 
have  no  brains  to  cultivate,  or  who  are  not  engaged  in  educat- 
ing and  storing  them;  but  they  are  not  the  things  for  studi- 
ous young  men.  The  awful  strain  that  they  inflict  upon  the 
body  draws  all  the  nervous  energy  to  the  support  of  the  mus- 
cular system,  and  kills  the  ability  to  study.  More  than  all, 
they  wound  the  vitality  of  every  man  who  engages  in  them. 
We  once  heard  an  English  clergyman  say  that  every  noted 
athlete  of  his  (the  clergyman's)  class  in  the  university  was  either 
dead  or  worse.  Moderate  play  every  day  in  the  open  air,  lim- 
ited hours  of  study  in  the  day-time,  pleasant  social  intercourse, 
unlimited  sleep,  good  food,  the  education  of  power  by  its  use 
in  writing,  speaking,  and  debating — these  are  what  make  men 
of  symmetry,  health,  and  usefulness.  The  forcing  process,  in 
whatever  way  applied,  and  to  whatever  set  of  powers,  is  a 
dangerous  process.  We  make  a  great  stir  over  the  flogging 
of  a  refractory  boy  by  a  teacher.  Whole  communities  are 
sometimes  convulsed  by  what  is  regarded  as  a  case  of  phys- 
ical cruelty  in  a  school,  but  the  truth  is  that  the  ferule  and  the 
raw-hide  are  the  mildest  instruments  of  cruelty  in  the  hands  of 
more  teachers  than  can  be  counted.  The  boy  who  is  crowded 
to  do  more  than  he  ought  to  do  in  study,  and  so  crowded  that 
he  is  enfeebled,  or  takes  on  disease  of  the  brain  and  nervous 
system  at  the  first  onset  of  sickness,  is  the  victim  of  the  sub 
tlest  cruelty  that  can  be  practiced  upon  him. 


og  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

We  write  strongly  of  these  things  because  we  feel  strongly 
We  believe  that  there  is  a  wrong  practiced  upon  the  children 
and  young  men  of  the  country  that  ought  to  be  righted.  We 
believe,  too,  that  not  only  teachers  but  parents  are  blame- 
worthy in  this  matter.  It  all  comes  of  a  false  idea  of  educa- 
tion. To  acquire  what  is  written  in  books — in  the  quickest 
way  and  in  the  greatest  quantity — this  is  education  in  the 
popular  opinion.  The  enormous  mistakes  and  fatal  policies 
of  which  we  complain  all  grow  out  of  this  error.  Half  of  the 
schooling  which  we  give  those  children  who  go  to  school 
would  be  better  than  the  whole ;  while  the  poor  third,  who  do 
not  go  to  school  at  all,  would  give  employment  to  the  unused 
energies  of  those  teachers  whose  time  would  be  released  to 
them  by  such  a  reduction  of  school  hours.  Six  hours  of  daily 
imprisonment  for  a  child  is  cruelty,  without  any  reference  to 
the  tasks  to  which  he  is  held  during  that  period. 

KEEPING  AT  IT. 

Every  man  has  his  own  definition  of  happiness ;  but  when 
men  have  risen  above  the  mere  sensualities  of  life, — above 
eating  and  drinking,  and  sleeping,  and  hearing  and  seeing, — 
they  can  come  to  something  like  an  agreement  upon  a  defini- 
tion which,  when  formulated,  would  read  something  like  this : 
"  Happiness  consists  in  the  harmonious,  healthy,  successful  ac- 
tion of  a  man's  powers."  The  higher  these  powers  may  be, 
and  the  higher  the  sphere  in  which  they  move,  the  higher  the 
happiness.  The  genuine  "fool's  paradise"  is  ease.  There  are 
millions  of  men,  hard  at  work,  who  are  looking  for  their  re- 
ward to  immunity  from  work.  They  would  be  quite  content 
to  purchase  twenty-five  years  of  leisure  with  twenty-five  years 
of  the  most  slavish  drudgery.  Toward  these  years  of  leisure 
they  constantly  look  with  hope  and  expectation.  Not  un- 


PERSONAL  DANGERS. 


97 


frequently  the  leisure  is  won  and  entered  upon ;  but  it  is  al- 
ways a  disappointment.  It  never  brings  the  happiness  which 
was  expected,  and  it  often  brings  such  a  change  of  habits  as  to 
prove  fatal,  either  to  health  or  to  life. 

A  man  who  inherits  wealth  may  begin  and  worry  through 
three-score  years  and  ten  without  any  very  definite  object.  In 
driving,  in  foreign  travel,  in  hunting  and  fishing,  in  club-houses 
and  society,  he  may  manage  to  pass  away  his  time ;  but  he 
will  hardly  be  happy.  It  seems  to  be  necessary  to  health  that 
the  powers  of  a  man  be  trained  upon  some  object,  and  steadily 
held  there  day  after  day,  year  after  year,  while  vitality  lasts. 
There  may  come  a  time  in  old  age  when  the  fund  of  vitality 
will  have  sunk  so  low  that  he  can  follow  no  consecutive  labor 
without  such  a  draft  upon  his  forces  that  sleep  cannot  restore 
them.  Then,  and  not  before,  he  should  stop  work.  But,  so 
long  as  a  man  has  vitality  to  spare  upon  work,  it  must  be  used, 
or  it  will  become  a  source  of  grievous,  harassing  discontent. 
The  man  will  not  know  what  to  do  with  himself,  and  when  he 
has  reached  such  a  point  as  that,  he  is  unconsciously  digging 
a  grave  for  himself,  and  fashioning  his  own  -coffin.  Life  needs 
a  steady  channel  to  run  in — regular  habits  of  work  and  of 
sleep.  It  needs  a  steady,  stimulating  aim — a  trend  toward 
something.  An  aimless  life  can  never  be  happy,  or,  for  a  long 
period,  healthy.  Said  a  rich  widow  to  a  gentleman,  still  labor- 
ing beyond  his  needs  :  "  Don't  stop  ;  keep  at  it."  The  words 
that  were  in  her  heart  were :  "If  my  husband  had  not  stopped, 
he  would  be  alive  to-day."  And  what  she  thought  was  doubt- 
less true,  A  greater  shock  can  hardly  befall  a  man  who  has 
been  active  than  that  which  he  experiences  when,  having  re- 
linquished his  pursuits,  he  finds  unused  time  and  unused  vital- 
ity hanging  upon  his  idle  hands  and  mind.  The  current  of 
his  life  is  thus  thrown  into  eddies,  or  settled  into  a  sluggish 
pool,  and  he  begins  to  die. 


gg  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

We  have,  and  have  had,  in  our  own  city  some  notable  ex- 
amples of  business  continued  through  a  long  life  with  unbroken 
health  and  capacities  to  the  last.  Mr.  Astor,  who  has  just 
passed  away,  undoubtedly  prolonged  his  life  by  his  steady  ad- 
herence to  business.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  lived  longer 
and  was  happier  for  his  continued  work.  If  he  had  settled 
back  upon  the  consciousness  of  assured  wealth,  and  taken  the 
ease  that  was  so  thoroughly  warranted  by  his  large  possessions, 
he  would  undoubtedly  have  died  years  ago.  Commodore 
Vanderbilt,  now  more  than  eighty  years  old,  is  a  notable  in- 
stance of  healthy  powers,  continued  by  use.  How  long  does 
any  one  suppose  he  would  live  if  his  work  were  taken  from  his 
hands,  and  his  care  from  his  mind?  His  life  goes  on  in  a 
steady  drift,  and  he  is  as  able  now  to  manage  vast  business  en- 
terprises as  when  he  was  younger.  There  was  never  a  time 
apparently  when  his  power  was  greater  than  it  is  to-day.  Our 
Nestor  among  American  editors  and  poets,  though  an  octo- 
genarian, not  only  mingles  freely  in  society,  makes  public 
speeches,  and  looks  after  his  newspaper,  but  writes  verses,  and 
is  carrying  on  grand  literary  enterprises.  Many  people  won- 
der why  such  men  continue  to  work  when  they  might  retire 
upon  their  money  and  their  laurels ;  but  they  are  working,  not 
only  for  happiness,  but  for  life. 

The  great  difficulty  with  us  all  is  that  we  do  not  play  enough. 
The  play  toward  which  men  in  business  look  for  their  reward 
should  never  be  taken  in  a  lump,  but  should  be  scattered  all 
along  their  career.  It  should  be  enjoyed  every  day,  every 
week.  The  man  who  looks  forward  to  it  wants  it  now. 
Play,  like  wit  in  literature,  should  never  be  a  grand  dish,  but 
a  spice ;  and  a  man  who  does  not  take  his  play  with  his  work 
never  has  it.  Play  ceases  to  be  play  to  a  man  when  it  ceases 
to  be  relaxation  from  daily  work.  As  the  grand  business  of  life, 
play  is  the  hardest  work  a  man  can  do. 


PERSONAL  DANGERS. 


99 


Besides  the  motives  of  continued  life  and  happiness  to  which 
we  have  called  attention  in  this  article,  there  is  another  of  pe- 
culiar force  in  America,  which  binds  us  to  labor  while  we  live. 
If  we  look  across  the  water,  we  shall  find  that  nearly  all  the 
notable  men  die  in  the  harness.  The  old  men  are  the  great 
men  in  Parliament  and  Cabinet.  Yet  it  is  true  that  a  man 
does  not  so  wholly  take  himself  out  of  life  in  Europe  as  in 
America  when  he  relinquishes  business.  A  rich  man  in  Eu- 
rope can  quit  active  affairs,  and  still  have  the  consideration  due 
to  his  talents,  his  wealth,  and  his  social  position.  Here,  a 
man  has  only  to  "count  himself  out"  of  active  pursuits,  to 
count  himself  out  of  the  world.  A  man  out  of  work  is  a  dead 
man,  even  if  he  is  the  possessor  of  millions.  The  world  walks 
straight  over  him  and  his  memory.  One  reason  why  a  rich 
and  idle  man  is  happier  in  Europe  than  at  home  is  that  he  has 
the  countenance  of  a  class  of  respectable  men  and  women  liv- 
ing upon  their  incomes.  A  man  may  be  respectable  in  Europe 
without  work.  After  a  certain  fashion,  he  can  be 'so  here;  but, 
after  all,  the  fact  that  he  has  ceased  to  be  active  in  affairs  of 
business  and  politics  makes  him  of  no  account.  He  loses  his 
influence,  and  goes  for  nothing,  except  a  relic  with  a  hat  on,  to 
be  bowed  to.  So  there  is  no  way  for  us  but  to  "  keep  at  it ;  " 
get  all  the  play  we  need  as  we  go  on;  drive  at  something,  so 
long  as  the  hand  is  strong  and  steady,  and  not  to  think  of  rest 
this  side  of  the  narrow  bed,  where  the  sleep  will  be  too  deep 
for  dreams,  and  the  waking  will  open  into  infinite  leirure. 


PERSONAL  DEVELOPMENT. 

THE  AMERICAN  GENTLEMAN  OF  LEISURE. 

Did  the  reader  ever  see  a  lost  dog  in  a  great  city  ?  Not  a 
dog  recently  lost,  full  of  wild  anxiety  and  restless  pain  and  be- 
wilderment, but  one  who  had  given  up  the  search  for  a  master 
in  despair,  and  had  become  consciously  a  vagabond  ?  If  so,  he 
has  seen  an  animal  that  has  lost  his  self-respect,  traveling  in 
the  gutters,  slinking  along  by  fences,  making  acquaintance 
with  dirty  boys,  becoming  a  thorough  coward,  and  losing  every 
admirable  characteristic  of  a  dog.  A  cat  is  a  cat  even  in  vaga- 
bondage; but  a  dog  that  does  not  belong  to  somebody  is  as 
hopeless  a  specimen  of  demoralization  as  can  be  found  in  the 
superior  race  among  which  he  has  sought  in  vain  for  his  mas- 
ter. We  know  him  at  first  sight,  and  he  knows  that  we  know 
him.  The  loss  of  his  place  in  the  world,  and  the  loss  of  his  ob- 
jects of  loyalty,  personal  and  official,  have  taken  the  signifi- 
cance out  of  his  life  and  the  spirit  out  of  him.  He  has  become 
a  dog  of  leisure. 

We  do  not  know  how  it  may  be  in  trans-Atlantic  countries. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  in  Constantinople,  where  dogs  are 
plenty  and  masters  comparatively  scarce,  the  canine  vagabonds 
keep  each  other  in  countenance.  There  is  a  sort  of  self-respect 
among  human  thieves,  if  only  enough  of  them  get  together. 
Where  beggars  are  plenty,  there  are  sometimes  generated  a 


PERSONAL  DEVELOPMENT.  IOi 

sort  of  professional  ambition  and  a  semblance,  at  least,  of  pro- 
fessional pride  and  honor.  Liquor-dealers  form  a  society,  pub- 
lish a  newspaper,  call  themselves  "  Wine  Merchants,"  and 
make  themselves  believe  that  they  are  respectable.  Stock- 
gamblers  in  Wall  street,  by  sheer  force  of  numbers  in  combina- 
tion, make  a  business  semi-respectable  which  never  added  a 
dollar  of  wealth  to  the  country  and  never  will,  and  which  con- 
stantly places  the  business  interests  of  the  country  in  jeopardy. 
So  it  is  possible  that  in  Constantinople  lost  dogs  maintain  their 
self-respect,  by  community  of  feeling  and  a  consciousness  that 
they  are  neither  exceptional  nor  eccentric.  A  dog's  sense  of 
vagabondage  would  seem,  therefore,  to  depend  much  upon  his 
atmosphere  and  circumstances.  In  New  York  he  loses  him- 
self with  his  home;  in  Constantinople  he  joins  a  community. 

The  American  man  of  leisure  is  a  sort  of  lost  dog.  The 
people  are  so  busy,  they  have  so  long  associated  personal  im- 
portance with  action  and  usefulness,  that  it  is  all  a  man's  life 
is  worth  to  drop  out  of  active  employment.  If  a  Vanderbilt 
should  quietly  release  his  hold  of  the  vast  railroad  interests 
now  in  his  hands,  and  should  never  more  show  his  face  in  Wall 
Street,  he  would  practically  shrink  to  a  nonentity  and  cease  to 
be  of  interest  to  anybody.  It  is  undeniably  true  that  there  is 
nobody  in  America  who  has  so  hard  a  time  as  the  man  of 
leisure.  The  man  who  has  nothing  to  do,  and  nobody  to  help 
him  do  nothing,  may  properly  be  counted  among  the  unfortu- 
nate classes,  without  regard  to  the  amount  of  wealth  he  pos- 
sesses. This  is,  doubtless,  the  reason  why  so  many  who  retire 
from  a  life  of  profitable  labor  come  back,  after  a  few  months 
or  years,  to  their  old  haunts  and  old  pursuits.  They  see  that 
the  moment  they  count  themselves  out  of  active  life,  they  are 
counted  by  their  old  acquaintances  out  of  the  world.  They 
become  mere  loafers  and  hangers-on ;  and  a  certain  sense  c^ 


!  0  2  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

vagabondage  depresses  them.  The  climate  is  stimulating,  time 
hangs  heavy  on  their  hands,  business  is  exciting,  business  as- 
sociations are  congenial  and  attractive ;  and  so  they  go  back 
to  their  industries,  never  to  leave  them  again  till  sickness  or 
death  or  old  age  removes  them  from  the  theatre  of  their  efforts. 

In  Europe  we  know  that  the  case  is  widely  different.  The 
number  of  men  who  live  upon  their  estates, — estates  either 
won  by  trade  or  inherited  from  rich  ancestors, — is  very  large, 
while  those  who  have  small,  fixed  incomes,  which  they  never 
undertake  to  increase,  is  larger  still.  The  Englishman  of 
leisure  who  cannot  live  at  home  on  his  income  goes  to  the 
Continent,  and  seeks  a  place  where  his  limited  number  of 
pounds  per  annum  will  give  him  genteel  lodgings,  with  a  life 
of  idle  leisure.  In  such  a  place  he  finds  others  in  plenty  who 
are  as  idle  as  he,  and  who  have  come  there  for  the  same  reason 
that  brings  him.  He  finds  it  quite  respectable  to  do  nothing, 
and  knows  that  his  command  of  the  means  that  give  him  leis- 
ure is  the  subject  of  envy  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants.  He 
eats,  sleeps,  reads,  visits,  writes  letters,  and  kills  time  without 
any  loss  of  self-respect,  and  without  feeling  the  slightest  at- 
traction for  busier  life.  Indeed,  the  tradesmen  who  are  active 
around  him  are  looked  down  upon  as  social  inferiors,  on  ac- 
count of  the  fact  that  they  are  under  the  necessity  of  work. 
Work  is  not  a  genteel  thing  to  do,  unless  it  be  done  in  an  office 
or  profession.  Shop-keeping  and  labor  of  the  hands  are  ac- 
counted vulgar. 

It  seems  impossible  to  conclude  that  the  man  of  leisure  can 
ever  hold  a  desirable  position  where  labor  holds  its  legitimate 
position.  We  wish  the  American  could  have  more  leisure  than 
he  has.  It  would,  in  many  respects,  be  well  for  society  that 
men  who  have  property  enough,  and  ten  times  more  than 
enough,  should  retire  from  active  life  to  make  place  for  others 


PERSONAL  DEVELOPMENT. 


103 


rather  than  go  on  accumulating  gigantic  fortunes  which  be- 
come curses  to  their  owners  and  the  community.  After  all,  if 
idleness  can  only  be  made  respectable  and  desirable  by  mak- 
ing labor  vulgar,  we  trust  that  the  American  gentleman  of 
leisure  will  be  as  rare  in  the  future  as  he  has  been  in  the  past. 
We  are  glad,  on  the  whole,  that  every  American  deems  it 
essential  to  belong  to  somebody,  to  belong  to  something,  to 
sustain  some  active  relation  to  some  industry,  or  enterprise,  or 
charity,  to  be  counted  in  at  some  point  among  the  useful 
forces  of  society.  He  is  the  better  and  the  happier  for  it,  and 
he  helps  to  sustain  the  honor  and  self-respect  of  all  those  with 
whom  labor  is  a  constant  necessity. 

THE  IMPROVED  AMERICAN. 

Those  Americans  who  have  traveled  over  Europe  during 
the  past  three  or  four  years,  expecting  to  be  shocked  by  the 
vulgar  display  of  their  countrymen  and  countrywomen,  and 
shamed  by  their  gaucheries,  have  been  pleasantly  surprised  to 
find  their  expectations  unrealized.  The  American  in  Europe 
is  now  a  quiet  person,  who  minds  his  own  business,  takes 
quickly  to  the  best  habits  of  the  country  in  which  he  finds 
himself,  pays  his  bills,  and  commands  an  ordinary  degree  of 
respect.  The  vulgar  displays  on  the  continent  are  now  made 
mainly  by  men  who  were  born  there,  and  who,  having  made 
money  in  America,  have  returned  to  their  early  homes  to  show 
themselves  and  their  wealth.  These  people  do  more  to  bring 
America  into  disrepute  in  Germany  than  all  the  native  Amer- 
icans have  ever  done;  and  many  of  them,  we  regret  to  say, 
have  been  sent  there  by  the  American  government  as  consuls 
and  other  governmental  agents  whose  end  in  securing  such 
appointments  was  simply  that  of  commanding  respect  and  po- 
sition in  communities  in  which  neither  they  nor  their  friends 


IO4 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


had  ever  had  the  slightest  consideration.  In  railway  carriages 
and  diligences  and  steamers  the  American  is  always  a  courte- 
ous and  well-behaved  person,  who  bears  with  good-nature  his 
full  share  of  inconveniences,  is  heartily  polite  to  ladies  of  all 
nationalities,  is  kind  to  children,  and  helpful  to  all.  He  and 
his  wife  and  daughters  are  invariably  more  tastefully  and  ap- 
propriately dressed  than  their  English  fellow-travelers,  and  at 
the  table  d'  hote  their  manners  are  irreproachable,  while  very 
little  that  is  pleasant  can  be  said  of  the  "table  manners"  of  the 
subjects  of  the  Kaiser  William.  In  brief,  the  traveling  Amer- 
ican is  greatly  improved,  and  it  is  time  that  he  were  relieved 
of  the  lampoons  of  ill-natured  correspondents  and  penny-a- 
liners,  and  placed  where  he  belongs — among  the  best  bred  of 
all  those  who  are  afloat  upon  the  tide  of  travel. 

Again,  those  who  have  visited  the  various  American  water- 
ing-places during  the  past  season,  have  not  failed  to  remark 
that  a  great  change  has  occurred  among  the  summer  pleasure- 
seekers.  At  Newport  and  Saratoga  the  efforts  at  vulgar 
display,  which  were  frequent  during  the  last  years  of  the  war 
and  the  first  of  peace,  have  been  entirely  wanting.  The 
vulgar  love  of  the  dance  and  the  display  which  it  involves,  in 
all  the  popular  places  of  resort,  have  almost  entirely  disap- 
peared. With  the  most  inspiring  bands  of  music  there  is  but 
little  dancing  except  at  the  small  family  hotels  in  out-of-the- 
way  places.  Bathing,  driving,  walking,  rowing,  sailing,  bowl- 
ing, and  croquet  and  pic-nic  give  a  healthful  tone  to  the  sea- 
side and  inland  places  of  recreation,  and  dress  and  dancing 
are  at  a  discount.  People  speak  of  this  change  as  if  it  were  a 
fashion  of  the  year,  but  in  truth  it  is  the  evidence  of  an  im- 
provement in  the  national  character  and  life.  We  are  less 
children  and  more  men  and  women  than  we  were — finer  and 
higher  in  our  thoughts  and  tastes. 


PERSONA  L  DE I  'EL  OPMEXT. 


I05 


There  are  other  signs  of  improvement  in  the  American,  and 
these  relate  mainly  to  the  female  side  of  the  nation.  The 
American  woman  has  long  been  regarded  by  Europeans  as  the 
most  beautiful  woman  in  the  world  This  she  is  and  has  been 
for  twenty-five  years,  without  a  doubt;  and  as  the  circum- 
stances of  her  life  become  easier,  her  labor  less  severe,  and  her 
education  better,  she  will  be  more  beautiful  still.  America 
never  possessed  a  more  beautiful  generation  of  women  than 
she  possesses  to-day,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  style  of 
beauty  is  changing  to  a  nobler  type.  The  characteristic 
American  woman  of  the  present  generation  is  larger  than  the 
characteristic  American  woman  of  the  previous  generation. 
It  comes  of  better  food,  better  clothing,  better  sleep,  more 
fresh  air,  and  less  of  hard  work  to  mothers  during  those 
periods  when  their  vitality  is  all  demanded  for  their  motherly 
functions.  We  venture  to  say  that  the  remark  has  been  made 
by  observers  thousands  of  times  during  recent  summers,  at 
the  various  places  of  resort,  that  they  had  never  seen  so  many 
large  women  together  before.  Indisputably  they  never  had. 

The  same  fact  of  physical  improvement  is  not  so  apparent 
among  the  men,  and  the  cause  is  not  too  far  off  to  be  found. 
It  need  not  be  alluded  to,  however,  until  something  has  been 
said  about  the  reasons  of  the  superior  beauty  of  American 
women  over  those  of  other  Christian^  nationalities.  The  typ- 
ical American  woman  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a  beer- 
drinking  or  a  wine-drinking  woman;  and  to  this  fact  mainly 
we  attribute  her  wealth  of  personal  loveliness.  In  America  it 
has  always  been  considered  vulgar  for  a  woman  to  be  fond  of 
stimulating  liquors  in  any  form,  and  horribly  disgraceful  for  her 
to  drink  them  habitually.  As  a  rule,  all  over  the  country,  the 
American  woman  drinks  nothing  stronger  than  the  decoctions 
of  the  tea-table,  and  those  she  is  learning  to  shun.  She  is 


j  06  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

a  being  raised  to  maturity  without  a  stimulant,  and  as  this 
is  the  singular,  distinguishing  fact  in  her  history,  when  we 
compare  her  with  the  woman  of  other  nations,  it  is  no  more 
than  fair  to  claim  that  it  has  much  to  do  with  her  pre-eminence 
of  physical  beauty. 

This  will  appear  still  more  forcibly  to  be  the  case  when  we 
find  that  physical  improvement  in  the  American  man  is  not  so 
evident  as  it  appears  to  be  in  his  wife  and  sister.  The  Amer- 
ican man  is  better  housed,  better  clothed,  and  better  fed  than 
formerly,  but  his  habits  are  not  better.  Our  students  are  done 
with  bran-bread  and  scant  sleep,  and  are  winning  muscle  and 
health  in  the  gymnasium;  but  they  smoke  too  much.  The 
young  men  in  business  everywhere  understand  the  laws  of 
health  and  development  better  than  the  generation  that  pre- 
ceded them,  but  they  drink  too  much.  This  whole  business 
of  drinking  is  dwarfing  the  American  man.  It  stupefies  the 
brain  and  swells  the  bulk  of  the  Englishman  and  the  German, 
but  it  frets  and  rasps  and  whittles  down  the  already  over- 
stimulated  American.  The  facts  recently  published  concerning 
the  enormous  consumption  of  liquor  in  America  are  enough  to 
account  for  the  disparity  between  the  degrees  of  physical  im- 
provement that  have  been  achieved  respectively  by  the  two 
sexes.  The  young  American  who  drinks  habitually,  or  who, 
by  drinking  occasionally,  puts  himself  in  danger  of  drinking 
habitually,  sins  against  his  own  body  beyond  the  power  of 
nature  to  forgive.  He  stunts  his  own  growth  to  manly  stature, 
and  spoils  himself  for  becoming  the  father  of  manly  men  and 
womanly  women.  The  improved  American  will  not  drink, 
and  he  will  not  be  improved  until  he  stops  drinking. 

ROOM  AT  THE  TOP. 

To  the  young  men  annually  making  their  entrance   upon 
active  life,  with  great  ambitions,  conscious  capacities  and  high 


PERSONAL  DEVELOPMENT. 


107 


hopes,  the  prospect  is,  in  ninety-nine  cases  in  a  hundred,  most 
perplexing.  They  see  every  avenue  to  prosperity  thronged 
with  their  superiors  in  experience,  in  social  advantages,  and  in 
the  possession  of  all  the  elements  and  conditions  of  success. 
Every  post  is  occupied,  every  office  filled,  every  path  crowded. 
Where  shall  they  find  room?  It  is  related  of  Mr.  Webster 
that  when  a  young  lawyer  suggested  to  him  that  the  profession 
to  which  he  had  devoted  himself  was  overcrowded,  the  great 
man  replied:  "Young  man,  there  is  always  room  enough  at 
the  top."  Never  was  a  wiser  or  more  suggestive  word  said. 
There  undoubtedly  is  always  room  enough  where  excellence 
lives.  Mr.  Webster  was  not  troubled  for  lack  of  room.  Mr. 
Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun  were  never  crowded.  Mr.  Evarts,  Mr. 
Gushing,  and  Mr.  O'Conor  have  plenty  of  space  around  them. 
Mr.  Beecher,  Dr.  Storrs,  Dr.  Hall,  Mr.  Phillips  Brooks 
would  never  know,  in  their  personal  experience,  that  it  was 
hard  to  obtain  a  desirable  ministerial  charge.  The  profession 
is  not  crowded  where  they  are.  Dr.  Brown-Sequard,  Dr.  Wil- 
lard  Parker,  Dr.  Hammond,  are  not  troubled  for  space  for 
their  elbows.  When  Nelaton  died  in  Paris,  he  died  like  Moses 
on  a  mountain.  When  Von  Graefe  died  in  Berlin,  he  had  no 
neighbor  at  his  altitude. 

It  is  well,  first,  that  all  young  men  remember  that  nothing 
will  do  them  so  much  injury  as  quick  and  easy  success,  and 
that  nothing  will  do  them  so  much  good  as  a  struggle  which 
teaches  them  exactly  what  there  is  in  them,  educates  them 
gradually  to  its  use,  instructs  them  in  personal  economy,  drills 
them  into  a  patient  and  persistent  habit  of  work,  and  keeps 
them  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder  until  they  become  strong  enough 
to  hold  every  step  they  are  enabled  to  gain.  The  first  years 
of  every  man's  business  or  professional  life  are  years  of  educa- 
tion. They  are  intended  to  be,  in  the  order  of  nature  and 


!  08  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

Providence.  Doors  do  not  open  to  a  man  until  he  is  prepared 
to  enter  them.  The  man  without  a  wedding  garment  may  get 
in  surreptitiously,  but  he  immediately  goes  out  with  a  flea  in 
his  ear.  We  think  it  is  the  experience  of  most  successful  men 
who  have  watched  the  course  of  their  lives  in  retrospect,  that 
whenever  they  have  arrived  at  a  point  where  they  were  thor- 
oughly prepared  to  go  up  higher,  the  door  to  a  higher  place 
has  swung  back  of  itself,  and  they  have  heard  the  call  to 
enter.  The  old  die,  or  voluntarily  retire  for  rest.  The  best 
men  who  stand  ready  to  take  their  places  will  succeed  to  their 
position  and  its  honors  and  emoluments. 

The  young  men  will  say  that  only  a  few  can  reach  the  top. 
That  is  true,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  further  from  the  bottom 
one  goes,  the  more  scattering  the  neighborhood.  One  can 
fancy,  for  illustration,  that  every  profession  and  every  calling  is 
pyramidal  in  its  living  constituency,  and  that  while  only  one 
man  is  at  the  top,  there  are  several  tiers  of  men  below  him  who 
have  plenty  of  elbow-room,  and  that  it  is  only  at  the  base  that 
men  are  so  thick  that  they  pick  the  meat  out  of  one  another's 
teeth  to  keep  themselves  from  starving.  If  a  man  has  no  power 
to  get  out  of  the  rabble  at  the  bottom,  then  he  is  self-convicted 
of  having  chosen  a  calling  or  profession  to  whose  duties  he 
has  no  adaptation. 

The  grand  mistake  that  young  men  make,  during  the  first 
ten  years  of  their  business  and  professional  life,  is  in  idly  waiting 
for  their  chance.  They  seem  to  forget,  or  they  do  not  know, 
that  during  those  ten  years  they  enjoy  the  only  leisure  they 
will  ever  have.  After  ten  years,  in  the  natural  course  of  things, 
they  will  be  absorbingly  busy.  There  will  then  be  no  time  for 
reading,  culture,  and  study.  If  they  do  not  become  thoroughly 
grounded  in  the  principles  and  practical  details  of  their  profes- 
sion during  those  years ;  if  they  do  not  store  their  minds  with 


PERSONAL  DEVELOPMENT. 


109 


useful  knowledge ;  if  they  do  not  pursue  habits  of  reading  and 
observation,  and  social  intercourse,  which  result  in  culture,  the 
question  whether  they  will  ever  rise  to  occupy  a  place  where 
there  is  room  enough  for  them  will  be  decided  in  the  negative. 
The  young  physicians  and  young  lawyers  who  sit  idly  in  their 
offices,  and  smoke  and  lounge  away  the  time  "waiting  for 
something  to  turn  up,"  are  by  that  course  fastening  themselves 
for  life  to  the  lower  stratum,  where  their  struggle  for  a  bare 
livelihood  is  to  be  perpetual.  The  first  ten  years  are  golden 
years,  that  should  be  filled  with  systematic  reading  and  obser- 
vation. Everything  that  tends  to  professional  and  personal 
excellence,  should  be  an  object  of  daily  pursuit.  To  such  men 
the  doors  of  success  open  of  themselves  at  last.  Work  seeks 
the  best  hands,  as  naturally  as  water  runs  down  hill;  and  it 
never  seeks  the  hands  of  a  trifler,  or  of  one  whose  only  recom- 
mendation for  work  is  that  he  needs  it.  Young  men  do  not 
know  very  much  any  way,  and  the  time  always  comes  to  those 
who  become  worthy,  when  they  look  back  with  wonder  upon 
their  early  good  opinion  of  their  acquirements  and  them- 
selves. 

There  is  another  point  that  ought  not  to  be  overlooked  in 
the  treatment  of  this  subject.  Young  men  look  about  them 
and  see  a  great  measure  of  worldly  success  awarded  to  men 
without  principle.  They  see  the  trickster  crowned  with  public 
honors,  they  see  the  swindler  rolling  in  wealth,  they  see  the 
sharp  man,  the  overreaching  man,  the  unprincipled  man,  the 
liar,  the  demagogue,  the  time-server,  the  trimmer,  the  scoun- 
drel who  cunningly  manages,  though  constantly  disobeying 
moral  law  and  trampling  upon  social  courtesy,  to  keep  himself 
out  of  the  clutches  of  the  legal  police,  carrying  off  the  prizes 
of  wealth  and  place.  All  this  is  a  demoralizing  puzzle  and  a 
fearful  temptation;  and  multitudes  of  young  men  are  not 


,  j  0  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

strong  enough  to  stand  before  it.  They  ought  to  understand 
that  in  this  wicked  world  there  is  a  great  deal  of  room  where 
there  is  integrity.  Great  trusts  may  be  sought  by  scoundrels, 
but  great  trusts  never  seek  them  ;  and  perfect  integrity  is  at  a 
premium  even  among  scoundrels.  There  are  some  trusts 
that  they  will  never  confer  on  each  other.  There  are  occa- 
sions when  they  need  the  services  of  true  men,  and  they  do 
not  find  them  in  shoals  and  in  the  mud,  but  alone  and  in  pure 
water. 

In  the  realm  of  eminent  acquirements  and  eminent  integrity 
there  is  always  room  enough.  Let  no  young  man  of  industry 
and  perfect  honesty  despair  because  his  profession  or  calling  is 
crowded.  Let  him  always  remember  that  there  is  room 
enough  at  the  top,  and  that  the  question  whether  he  is  ever 
to  reach  the  top,  or  rise  above  the  crowd  at  the  base  of  the 
pyramid,  will  be  decided  by  the  way  in  which  he  improves  the 
first  ten  years  of  his  active  life  in  securing  to  himself  a  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  his  profession,  and  a  sound  moral  and 
intellectual  culture. 

THE  NEXT  DUTY. 

This  is  an  epoch  of  elevators.  We  do  not  climb  to  our 
rooms  in  the  hotel;  we  ride.  We  do  not  reach  the  upper  sto- 
ries of  Stewart's  by  slow  and  patient  steps ;  we  are  lifted  there. 
The  Simplon  is  crossed  by  a  railroad,  and  steam  has 
usurped  the  place  of  the  Alpen-stock  on  the  Rhigi.  The  climb 
which  used  to  give  us  health  on  Mount  Holyoke,  and  a  beau- 
tiful prospect,  with  the  reward  of  rest,  is  now  purchased  for 
twenty-five  cents  of  a  stationary  engine. 

If  our  efforts  to  get  our  bodies  into  the  air  by  machinery 
were  not  imitated  in  our  efforts  to  get  our  lives  up  in  the 
same  way,  we  might  not  find  much  fault  with  them;  but,  in 


PERSONAL  DEVELOPMENT.  HI 

truth,  the  tendency  everywhere  is  to  get  up  in  the  world  with- 
out climbing.  Yearnings  after  the  Infinite  are  in  the  fashion. 
Aspirations  for  eminence— even  ambitions  for  usefulness — are 
altogether  in  advance  of  the  willingness  for  the  necessary  pre- 
liminary discipline  and  work.  The  amount  of  vaporing  among 
young  men  and  young  women,  who  desire  to  do  something 
which  somebody  else  is  doing — something  far  in  advance  of 
their  present  powers — is  fearful  and  most  lamentable.  They 
are  not  willing  to  climb  the  stairway;  they  must  go  up  in  an 
elevator.  They  are  not  willing  to  scale  the  rocks  in  a  walk  of 
weary  hours,  under  a  broiling  sun;  they  would  go  up  in  a  car 
with  an  umbrella  over  their  heads.  They  are  unable,  or  un- 
willing, to  recognize  the  fact  that,  in  order  to  do  that  very 
beautiful  thing  which  some  other  man  is  doing,  they  must  go 
slowly  though  the  discipline,  through  the  maturing  processes 
of  time,  through  the  patient  work,  which  have  made  him  what 
he  is,  and  fitted  him  for  his  sphere  of  life  and  labor.  In  short, 
they  are  not  willing  to  do  their  next  duty,  and  take  what 
comes  of  it. 

No  man  now  standing  on  an  eminence  of  influence  and 
power,  and  doing  great  work,  has  arrived  at  his  position  by 
going  up  in  an  elevator.  He  took  the  stairway,  step  by  step. 
He  climbed  the  rocks,  often  with  bleeding  hands.  He  pre- 
pared himself  by  the  work  of  climbing  for  the  work  he  is  do- 
ing. He  never  accomplished  an  inch  of  his  elevation  by 
standing  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  with  his  mouth  open,  and  long- 
ing. There  is  no  "royal  road"  to  anything  good — not  even 
to  wealth.  Money  that  has  not  been  paid  for  in  life  is  not 
wealth.  It  goes  as  it  comes.  There  is  no  element  of  perma- 
nence in  it.  The  man  who  reaches  his  money  in  an  elevator 
does  not  know  how  to  enjoy  it;  so  it  is  not  wealth  to  him. 
To  get  a  high  position  without  climbing  to  it,  to  win  wealth 


II2  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

without  earning  it,  to  do  fine  work  without  the  discipline  nec- 
essary to  its  performance,  to  be  famous,  or  useful,  or  orna- 
mental without  preliminary  cost,  seems  to  be  the  universal  de- 
sire of  the  young.  The  children  would  begin  where  the  fathers 
leave  off. 

What,  exactly,  is  the  secret  of  true  success  in  life  ?  It  is 
to  do,  without  flinching,  and  with  utter  faithfulness,  the  duty 
that  stands  next  to  one.  When  a  man  has  mastered  the  duties 
around  him,  he  is  ready  for  those  of  a  higher  grade,  and  he 
takes  naturally  one  step  upward.  When  he  has  mastered  the 
duties  at  the  new  grade,  he  goes  on  climbing.  There  are  no 
surprises  to  the  man  who  arrives  at  eminence  legitimately.  It 
is  entirely  natural  that  he  should  be  there,  and  he  is  as  much 
at  home  there,  and  as  little  elated,  as  when  he  was  working 
patiently  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  There  are  heights  above 
him,  and  he  remains  humble  and  simple. 

Preachments  are  of  little  avail,  perhaps;  but  when  one 
comes  into  contact  with  so  many  men  and  women  who  put 
aspiration  in  the  place  of  perspiration,  and  yearning  for  earn- 
ing, and  longing  for  labor,  he  is  tempted  to  say  to  them  : 
"Stop  looking  up,  and  look  around  you!  Do  the  work  that 
first  comes  to  your  hands,  and  do  it  well.  Take  no  upward 
step  until  you  come  to  it  naturally,  and  have  won  the  power 
to  hold  it.  The  top,  in  this  little  world,  is  not  so  very  high, 
and  patient  climbing  will  bring  you  to  it  ere  you  are  aware." 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 

THE  POWER  OF  THE  AFFIRMATIVE. 

The  power  of  positive  ideas  and  the  power  of  the  positive 
affirmation  and  promulgation  of  them  move  the  world.  Breath 
is  wasted  in  nothing  more  lavishly  than  in  negations  and  de- 
nials. It  is  not  necessary  for  truth  to  worry  itself,  even  if  a 
lie  can  run  a  league  while  it  is  putting  on  its  boots.  Let  it 
run,  and  get  out  of  breath,  and  get  out  of  the  way.  A  man 
who  spends  his  days  in  arresting  and  knocking  down  lies  and 
liars  will  have  no  time  left  for  speaking  the  truth.  There  is 
nothing  more  damaging  to  a  man's  reputation  than  his  ad- 
mission that  it  needs  defending  when  attacked.  Great  sensi- 
tiveness to  assault,  on  the  part  of  any  cause,  is  an  unmistakable 
sign  of  weakness.  A  strong  man  and  a  strong  cause  need 
only  to  live  an  affirmative  life,  devoting  no  attention  whatever 
to  enemies,  to  win  their  way,  and  to  trample  beneath  their  feet 
all  the  obstacles  that  malice,  or  jealousy,  or  selfishness  throws 
before  them.  The  man  who  can  say  strongly  and  earnestly 
"  I  believe,"  has  not  only  a  vital  and  valuable  possession,  but 
he  has  a  permanent  source  of  inspiration  within  himself,  and  a 
permanent-  influence  over  others.  The  man  who  responds  : 
"  I  do  not  believe  what  you  believe,"  or  "  I  deny  what  you 
believe,"  has  no  possession,  and  no  influence  except  a  personal 
one. 

8 


j  x  4  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

In  nothing  is  this  principle  better  exemplified  and  illustrated 
than  in  the  strifes  of  political  parties.  The  party  that  adopts 
a  group  of  positive  ideas,  and  shapes  a  positive  policy  upon 
them,  and  boldly  and  consistently  affirms  and  promulgates 
both  ideas  and  policy,  has  an  immense  advantage  over  one 
which  undertakes  to  operate  upon  a  capital  of  negations. 
The  history  of  American  politics  is  full  of  confirmations  of 
this  truth.  No  party  has  ever  had  more  than  a  temporary 
success  that  based  its  action  simply  on  a  denial  of  a  set  of 
positive  ideas  held  by  its  opponent.  The  popular  mind  de- 
mands something  positive — something  that  really  possesses 
breath  and  being — to  which  it  may  yield  its  allegiance.  There 
is  no  vitalizing  and  organic  power  in  simple  opposition  and 
negation.  Earnest,  straightforward  affirmation  has  a  power  in 
itself,  independent  of  what  it  affirms,  greater  than  negation 
when  associated  with  all  the  influences  it  can  engage. 

The  Author  of  Christianity  understood  this  matter.  His 
system  of  religion  was  to  be  preached,  proclaimed,  promul- 
gated. Its  friends  were  not  to  win  their  triumphs  by  denying 
the  denials  of  infidelity,  but  by  persistently  affirming,  explain- 
ing and  applying  the  truth.  With  this  system  of  truth  in  his 
hands — so  pure,  so  beneficent,  so  far-reaching  in  its  results 
upon  human  character,  happiness,  and  destiny — the  Christian 
teacher  commands  the  position.  Infidelity  and  denial  can 
make  no  permanent  headway  against  faith,  unless  faith  stop  to 
bandy  words  with  them.  That  is  precisely  what  they  would 
like,  and  what  would  give  them  an  importance  and  an  in- 
fluence which  they  can  win  in  no  other  way.  Why  should  an 
impregnable  fortress  exchange  shots  with  a  passing  schooner  ? 
Silence  would  be  a  better  defense  than  a  salvo,  and  deprive 
the  schooner  of  the  privilege  of  being  reported  in  the  news- 
papers. The  world  whirls  toward  the  sun,  and  never  stops  to 


PREA  CHERS  AND  PREA  CHING.  1 1 5 

parley  with  the  east  wind.  The  great  river,  checked  by  a 
dam,  quietly  piles  up  its  waters,  buries  the  dam,  and,  rolling 
over  it,  grasps  the  occasion  for  a  new  exhibition  of  its  positive 
power  and  beauty.  The  rip-rap  shuts  an  ocean  door,  but  the 
ocean  has  a  million  doors  through  which  it  may  pour  its  tides. 
Stopping  to  deny  denials  is  as  profitless  as  stopping  to  deny 
truths.  It  is  consenting  to  leave  an  affirmative  for  a  negative 
position,  which  is  a  removal  to  the  weak  side. 

So  a  man  who  has  really  anything  positive  in  him  has  noth 
ing  to  do  but  persistently  to  work  and  live  it  out.  If  he  is  a 
politician  or  a  statesman,  or  a  reformer  or  a  literary  man,  he 
can  make  himself  felt  most  as  a  power  in  the  world,  and  be 
securest  of  ultimate  recognition,  by  living  a  boldly  affirmative 
life,  and  doing  thoroughly  that  which  it  is  in  him  to  do,  regard- 
less of  assault,  detraction  and  misconstruction.  The  enemies 
of  any  man  who  suffers  himself  to  be  annoyed  by  them  will  be 
certain  to  keep  him  busy.  The  world  has  never  discovered 
anything  nutritious  in  a  negation,  and  the  men  of  faith  and 
conviction  will  always  find  a  multitude  eager  for  the  food  they 
bear.  Men  will  continue  to  drink  from  the  brooks  and  refuse 
to  eat  the  stones  that  obstruct  them.  Even  error  itself  in  an 
affirmative  form  is  a  thousand  times  more  powerful  than  when 
it  appears  as  a  denial  of  a  truth. 

MODERN  PREACHING. 

We  cannot  more  forcibly  illustrate  the  difference  between 
ancient  and  modern  preaching  than  by  imagining  the  transla- 
tion of  a  preacher  of  fifty  years  ago  to  a  modern  pulpit.  The 
dry  and  formal  essays,  the  long  homilies,  the  dogmatism  and 
controversy  that  then  formed  the  staple  of  public  religious 
teaching,  would  be  to-day  altogether  unsatisfactory  in  the  hear- 
ing, and  unfruitful  in  the  result.  Experience  has  proved  that 


!  !  6  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

Christians  are  more  rarely  made  by  arguments  addressed  to  the 
reason  than  by  motives  addressed  to  the  heart.  The  reliable 
and  satisfactory  evidences  of  Christianity  are  found  less  in  the 
sacred  records  than  in  its  transformations  of  character  and  its 
inspirations  of  life.  Though  a  thousand  Strausses  and  Renans 
were  at  work  endeavoring  to  undermine  the  historical  basis  of 
the  Christian  scheme,  their  efforts  would  prove  nugatory  when 
met  by  the  practical  results  of  that  scheme  in  reforming  char- 
acter, in  substituting  benevolence  for  selfishness  as  the  domi- 
nant motive  in  human  commerce,  in  sustaining  the  heart  in 
trial,  in  comforting  it  in  sickness,  and  supporting  it  in  dissolu- 
tion. With  the  results  of  Christianity  before  him  and  in  him, 
the  Christian  may  confidently  say  to  all  his  enemies:  "If  a  lie 
can  do  all  this,  then  a  lie  is  better  than  all  your  truth,  for  your 
truth  does  not  pretend  to  do  it;  and  if  our  lie  is  better  in  every 
possible  legitimate  result  than  your  truth,  then  your  truth  is 
proved  to  be  a  lie,  and  our  lie  is  the  truth."  The  argument 
is  not  only  fair  but  it  is  unanswerable,  and  saves  a  world  of 
trouble.  Of  all  "short  methods"  with  infidelity,  this  is  the 
shortest.  It  is  like  the  argument  of  design  in  proving  the  ex- 
istence of  an  intelligent  first  cause.  The  man  who  ignores  or 
denies  it,  is  either  incapable  of  reason  or  viciously  perverse. 

So  the  modern  preacher  preaches  more  and  argues  less. 
He  declares,  promulgates,  explains,  advises,  exhorts,  appeals. 
He  does  more  than  this.  Instead  of  regarding  Christianity 
solely  as  a  scheme  of  belief  and  faith,  and  thus  becoming  the 
narrow  expounder  of  a  creed,  he  broadens  into  a  critic  and 
cultivator  of  human  motive  and  character.  We  do  not  assert 
that  modern  preaching  is  entirely  released  from  its  old  narrow- 
ness. There  are  still  too  many  who  heat  over  the  old  broth, 
and  ladle  it  out  in  the  old  way  which  they  learned  in  the  sem- 
inary. This  "preaching  of  Jesus  Christ"  is  still  to  multitudes 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 


117 


the  preaching  of  a  scheme  of  religion,  the  explanation  of  a  plan, 
the  promulgation  of  dogmata.  But  these  men,  except  in  the 
most  ignorant  and  unprogressive  communities,  preach  to  empty 
walls,  or  contemptuous  audiences.  The  man  who  preaches 
Christ  the  most  effectively  and  acceptably,  in  these  days,  is  he 
who  tries  all  motive  and  character  and  life  by  the  divine  stand- 
ard, who  applies  the  divine  life  to  the  every-day  life  of  the 
world,  and  whose  grand  endeavor  is  not  so  much  to  save  men 
as  to  make  them  worth  saving.  He  denounces  wrong  in  pub- 
lic and  private  life;  he  exposes  and  reproves  the  sins  of  society; 
he  applies  and  urges  the  motives  to  purity,  sobriety,  honesty, 
charity,  and  good  neighborhood;  he  shows  men  to  themselves, 
and  then  shows  them  the  mode  by  which  they  may  correct 
themselves.  In  all  this  he  meets  with  wonderful  acceptance, 
and,  most  frequently,  in  direct  proportion  to  his  faithfulness. 
This,  after  all,  is  the  kind  of  talk  men  are  willing  to  hear,  even 
if  it  condemns  them.  All  truth  relating  to  the  faults  of  char- 
acter and  life,  if  presented  in  a  Christian  spirit,  by  a  man  who 
assumes  nothing  for  himself,  and  who  never  loses  sight  of  his 
own  weakness  and  his  brotherhood  with  the  erring  masses 
whom  he  addresses,  is  received  gladly. 

The  world  has  come  to  the  comprehension  of  the  fact  that, 
after  all  that  may  be  said  of  dogmatic  Christianity,  character 
is  the  final  result  at  which  its  author  aimed.  The  aim  and  end 
of  Christianity  is  to  make  men  better,  and  in  making  them  bet- 
ter to  secure  their  safety  and  happiness  in  this  world  and  the 
world  to  come.  The  Christianity  which  narrows  the  sympa- 
thies of  a  man,  and  binds  him  to  his  sect,  which  makes  the 
Christian  name  of  smaller  significance  to  him  than  the  name  of 
his  party,  which  thinks  more  of  soundness  of  belief  than  sound- 
ness of  character,  is  the  meanest  kind  of  Christianity,  and  be- 
longs to  the  old  and  outgrown  time.  It  savors  of  schools 


nS 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


and  books  and  tradition.  The  human  element  in  it  pre- 
dominates over  the  divine.  The  typical  modern  preacher 
mingles  with  men.  He  goes  into  the  world  of  business — into 
its  cares,  its  trials,  its  great  temptations,  its  overreachings,  its 
dangers  and  disasters — and  learns  the  character  and  needs  of 
the  men  he  meets  there.  He  sits  in  the  humble  dwelling  of 
the  laborer,  and  reads  the  wants  of  the  humanity  he  finds  there. 
In  workshops,  in  social  assemblies,  in  schools,  among  men,  wo- 
men and  children,  wherever  they  live,  or  meet  for  labor  or  for 
pleasure,  his  presence  is  familiar.  Human  life  is  the  book  he 
reads  preparatory  to  his  pulpit  labors,  and  without  the  faithful 
reading  of  this  book  he  has  no  fitting  preparation  for  his  task. 
No  matter  how  much  a  preacher  knows  of  the  divine  life, 
if  he  has  not  an  equal  knowledge  of  the  human,  his  message 
will  be  a  barren  one. 

The  great  mistake  of  the  modern  preacher  is  in  not  keeping 
up  with  the  secular  thought  of  his  time.  It  is  quite  as  essen- 
tial to  the  preacher  to  know  what  men  are  thinking  about  as 
what  they  are  doing.  Comparatively  few  preachers  are  at 
home  in  the  current  progress  of  science,  and  too  many  of  them 
look  coldly  upon  it,  as  upon  something  necessarily  inimical  to 
the  system  of  religion  to  which  they  have  committed  their 
lives.  They  apparently  forget  that  their  indifference  or  oppo- 
sition wins  only  contempt  for  themselves  and  their  scheme. 
There  are  few  laymen  so  devoid  of  common  sense  as  to  be  un- 
able to  see  that  any  scheme  which  is  afraid  of  scientific  truth 
— nay,  any  scheme  which  does  not  gladly  welcome  every  new 
realm  won  to  the  grand  domain  of  human  knowledge — is  un- 
worthy of  confidence.  An  unreasoning  loyalty  to  old  interpre- 
tations of  revealed  truth  is  a  weakness  of  the  pulpit  that  be- 
comes practically  a  reproach  to  Christianity  itself.  If  the  God 
of  nature  undeniably  disputes  the  God  of  revelation,  as  the 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 


119 


preacher  interprets  him,  let  him  give  up  his  interpretation 
gladly,  and  receive  the  correction  as  from  the  mouth  of  God 
himself.  It  is  only  in  this  way  that  he  can  maintain  his  hold 
upon  his  age,  and  win  honor  to  the  religion  he  tries  to  serve. 
All  truth  is  divine,  and  the  mode  of  utterance  makes  it  neither 
more  so  nor  less.  A  man  who  denies  a  truth  spoken  to  him 
by  the  God  of  nature  is  as  truly  and  culpably  an  infidel  as  if 
he  were  to  deny  a  plainly  spoken  truth  of  the  Bible. 

FEWER  SERMONS  AND  MORE  SERVICE. 

There  is,  without  any  question,  a  good  deal  of  "foolishness 
of  preaching,"  and  a  good  deal  of  preaching  which  is  "foolish- 
ness "  by  its  quantity  alone.  Preachers  are  aware  of  it,  pretty 
generally,  and  the  people  are  slowly  learning  it.  Indeed,  a 
reform  is  begun,  and  is  making  headway — a  reform  which  all 
the  intelligent  friends  of  Christian  progress  will  help  by  ready 
word  and  hand.  There  is  no  man  living,  engaged  in  literary 
work,  who  does  not  know  that  a  minister  who  writes,  or  in  any 
way  thoroughly  prepares,  two  sermons  a  week,  can  have  no 
time  for  any  other  work  whatsoever.  Pastoral  duty  is  out  of 
the  question  with  any  man  who  performs  this  task  month  after 
month.  A  man  who  faithfully  executes  this  amount  of  literary 
labor,  and  then,  on  Sunday,  preaches  his  two  sermons  and  per- 
forms the  other  services  which  are  connected  with  public  wor- 
ship, does  all  that  the  strongest  constitution  can  endure.  When 
it  is  undertaken  to  add  to  this  work  universal  pastoral  visitation, 
attendance  at  funerals,  weddings,  and  all  sorts  of  meetings  dur- 
ing the  week,  and  the  care  of  personal  and  family  affairs,  a  case 
of  cruelty  is  established  a  great  many  times  worse  than  any 
that  engages  the  sympathies  and  demands  the  interference  of 
the  humane  Mr.  Bergh.  To  do  all  this  work  without  a  fatal 
break-down  before  middle  age,  requires  an  amount  of  vitality 


j  2  0  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

and  a  strength  of  constitution  which  few  men  in  any  calling 
possess,  and  which  a  youth  devoted  to  study  is  pretty  certain 
to  damage  or  destroy. 

The  country  is  full  of  ministerial  wrecks,  three-fourths  of 
which  were  stranded  early  upon  the  sands  of  exhaustion. 
There  are  many  towns  in  America  in  which  there  are  now  liv- 
ing more  preachers  out  of  business — and  hopelessly  out — than 
the  number  engaged  in  active  life  and  employment.  We  think 
that  a  census  of  New  York  city  would  give  us  some  startling 
facts  connected  with  this  matter,  though  it  is  into  country 
towns,  where  the  cost  of  living  is  small,  that  the  exhausted 
preachers  drift  at  last.  We  know  a  little  New  England  town 
in  which  there  are  now  residing  more  than  twenty  ex-clergy- 
men,— a  number  four  times  as  large  as  that  of  the  active  pul- 
pits and  churches  in  the  town.  The  early  studies  of  these 
men,  and  the  excessive  service  demanded  of  them,  have 
reduced  the  majority  of  them  to  the  comparatively  useless  per- 
sons they  are. 

In  speaking  of  the  exhausting  nature  of  the  task  of  writing 
two  sermons  a  week,  we  have  made  no  distinctions.  The 
average  preacher  needs  as  much  time  for,  and  expends  as  much 
hard  work  on,  the  preparation  -of  a  single  sermon  as  Mr. 
Beecher  does  on  two.  To  demand  two  sermons  of  this  man — 
the  average  man — that  shall  be  even  tolerably  well  prepared, 
is  to  demand  what  is  not  in  him  to  give.  He  works  in  con- 
stant distress — conscious  all  the  time  that  under  the  pressure 
that  is  upon  him  he  can  never  do  his  best,  and  fearful  always 
that  his  power  over  his  flock  is  passing  with  the  weekly  drivel 
of  commonplace  which  he  is  obliged  to  breathe  or  bellow  into 
their  drowsy  ears.  Yet  the  average  preacher  manages  in  some 
way  to  preach  two  sermons  a  week,  to  attend  any  number  of 
meetings,  to  visit  every  family  of  his  charge  twice  a  year,  to 


PREA  CHERS  AND  PREA  CHING.  j  2 1 

officiate  at  weddings  and  funerals,  to  rear  his  children,  and  to 
do  this  until  he  breaks  down  or  is  dismissed,  and  with  his  old 
stock  of  sermons  on  hand,  as  capital,  begins  a  new  life  in 
another  parish,  from  which  in  due  time  he  will  pass  to  another. 

Now  if  such  work  as  this  were  necessary,  or  even  extraordi- 
narily useful,  there  would  be  some  apology  for  it,  and  some 
justification  of  it;  but  it  is  neither.  If  it  is  impossible  for  the 
average  minister  to  prepare  competently  two  sermons  a  week, 
it  is  just  as  impossible  for  the  average  parishioner  to  receive 
and  remember  and  appropriate  two  sermons  in  a  day.  No 
man  of  ordinary  observation  and  experience — no  man  who  has 
carefully  observed  his  own  mental  processes  in  the  reception 
and  appropriation  of  truth — has  failed  to  notice  that  the  digest- 
ive powers  of  the  mind  are  limited.  The  man  who  hears  and 
appropriates  a  good  sermon  in  the  morning  has  no  room  in  him 
for  another  sermon  in  the  afternoon  or  evening.  To  hear  three 
sermons  in  a  day  is  always  to  confuse  and  often  to  destroy  the 
impression  left  by  each.  Every  discourse  that  a  man  hears 
after  his  first  strong  impression  and  his  first  hungry  reception 
is  a  disturbing,  distracting,  and  depressing  force.  The  second 
sermon  on  a  single  Sabbath  makes  every  man  poorer  who 
heard  and  was  interested  in  the  first,  and  not  richer ;  while  both 
sermons  were  damaged  in  their  quality  by  the  simple  fact  that  the 
time  devoted  to  both  should  have  been  bestowed  on  one  alone. 
We  know  of  no  walk  of  life  in  which  there  is  such  a  profligacy 
of  resources  as  in  this — none  in  which  such  unreasonable 
demands  are  made  upon  public  servants  with  such  a  damaging 
reaction  upon  those  who  make  them.  The  preachers  are  killed 
outright,  or  permanently  damaged  in  their  power,  by  a  process 
that  results  in  the  impoverishment  of  the  very  men  who  demand 
its  following. 

The  truth  is,  that  half  of  this  fondness  for  preaching  that  we 


I22  EVERY  DA*  TOPICS. 

see  in  many  parishes  arises  from  hunger  for  some  sort  of  intel- 
lectual entertainment,  and  even  for  some  sort  of  amusement. 
The  hearers  go  away  from  their  Sunday  sermons  and  talk  about 
them  as  coolly  as  if  they  had  only  been  to  a  show.  They  gorge 
themselves — many  of  them  preferring  three  sermons  to  two. 
Then  they  go  into  their  weekly  work,  and  do  not  look  into  a 
book  from  Monday  morning  until  Saturday  night.  The  Sun- 
day sermons  are  all  the  amusement  and  intellectual  food  and 
stimulus  they  get.  They  fancy  they  are  very  religious,  and 
that  their  delight  in  endless  preaching  is  an  evidence  of  their 
piety,  when  in  truth  it  is  an  evidence  mainly  of  social  and 
intellectual  starvation,  and  of  a  most  inconsiderate  or  cruel 
demand  upon  the  vitality  of  the  poor  man  who  does  their 
preaching. 

Well,  the  world  has  been  preached  to  pretty  thoroughly  for 
the  last  hundred  years.  The  advocates  of  many  sermons 
have  had  it  all  their  own  way,  and  we  should  like  to  ask  them 
whether  the  results  of  preaching — pure  and  simple — satisfy 
them  ?  What  preacher  is  there  who  has  not  been  a  thousand 
times  discouraged  by  the  result  of  his  labors  in  the  pulpit  ? 
How  small  are  the  encroachments  made  upon  the  world  by 
it !  With  all  our  preaching  in  America — and  we  have  had 
more  of  it,  and  better,  than  has  been  enjoyed  in  any  other 
country — we  should,  but  for  the  prevalence  and  power  of 
Sunday-schools,  have  drifted  half-way  back  to  barbarism  by 
this  time.  Preaching  to  a  great  population  of  lazy  adults,  who 
do  nothing  for  themselves  or  the  children,  and  nothing  for  the 
Church  but  grumblingly  to  pay  their  pew-rent,  and  nothing  for 
the  world  around  them,  is  about  as  thriftless  a  business  as  any 
man  can  engage  in.  Let  us  saw  wood  and  eat  pork  and  beans, 
for  to-morrow  we  die. 

And  now  let  us  state  our  conclusions,  for  this  article,  which 
we  intended  should  be  brief,  is  opening  into  a  long  discourse. 


PREA  CHERS  AND  PREA  CHING.  T  2  3 

i  st.  There  is  no  way  to  improve  the  character  and  quality 
of  our  preaching  except  by  reducing  the  quantity.  The 
advancing  intellectual  activity  and  capacity  of  the  people 
demand  a  better  sermon  than  the  fathers  were  in  the  habit  of 
preaching — such  a  sermon  as  our  preachers  cannot  possibly 
produce  with  the  present  demand  for  two  sermons  on  a  Sun- 
day. 

2d.  For  all  practical  purposes  and  results,  one  sermon  on  a 
Sunday  is  better  than  two.  It  is  all  that  the  average  preacher 
can  produce,  doing  his  best,  and  all  that  the  average  hearer 
can  receive  and  "  inwardly  digest." 

3d.  One  sermon  each  Sunday  gives  the  whole  church  half 
a  day  in  which  to  engage  in  Sunday-school  and  missionary 
work,  and  a  Sunday  evening  at  home — an  evening  of  rest  and 
family  communion. 

Of  course  we  shall  be  met  by  the  stereotyped  questions: 
"  Will  not  our  people  go  somewhere  else  to  hear  preaching  if 
they  cannot  get  the  two  sermons  at  our  church  ?  "  "  Will  not 
young  people  go  to  worse  places  on  Sunday  night  if  the 
churches  should  be  shut  ?  "  The  answer  to  the  first  question 
is,  that  no  one  will  leave  "  our  church  "  who  is  worth  anything 
in  and  to  it ;  and  to  the  second,  that  whether  the  young  will 
go  to  worse  places  will  depend  something  upon  the  attractive- 
ness of  Christian  homes,  which  are  now  rather  lonely  and 
cheerless  places  on  a  Sunday,  we  confess.  Still,  if  places  of 
worship  must  be  open  for  them,  it  is  easy  to  have  union  ser- 
vices, dividing  the  work  among  the  pastors.  There  are  a 
thousand  ways  to  meet  special  exigencies  like  this,  for  which  we 
shall  find  our  means  amply  sufficient  when  the  broad  reform 
moves  through  the  land,  for  the  reform  must  come,  and  the 
sooner  the  better. 


!  24  DAY  TOPICS. 

THE  DRAGON  OF  THE  PEWS. 

A  little  direction  to  the  popular  imagination  is  only  neces- 
sary to  point  out  to  it  a  dragon  that,  every  Sunday,  enters 
every  church.  It  is  handed  like  Briareus,  headed  like  Hydra, 
and  footed  like  the  centiped.  It  is  beautiful  to  look  at,  with 
its  silken  scales  of  many  colors  flashing  in  the  sun,  but  its 
stomach,  like  that  of  all  respectable  dragons,  is  the  seat  of 
an  insatiable  greed.  Its  huge  bulk  fills  the  church,  and  the 
moment  it  is  at  rest  it  opens  its  mouth.  It  gorges  prayers, 
hymns,  exhortations  and  sermons,  as  the  pale  man  in  the  desk 
tosses  them  out,  and  opens  its  mouth  for  more  and  better.  But 
for  this  pale  man,  who  is  under  a  contract  to  feed  it,  and  is  at 
.his  wits'  and  strength's  end  to  accomplish  his  work,  it  could 
not  live.  When,  in  the  morning,  he  has  done  all  he  can  for  it, 
it  crawls  out,  to  come  back  in  the  afternoon,  with  its  maw  just  as 
empty,  its  feverish  eyes  just  as  expectant,  its  mouth  just  as  wide 
open  as  it  was  in  the  morning.  It  swallows  more  prayers,  more 
hymns,  another  sermon,  other  exhortations.  It  crawls  out  again 
to  go  somewhere  in  the  evening,  to  glut,  or  try  to  glut,  its  hor- 
rible greed.  Like  those  young  women  of  veterinary  parent- 
age it  cries,  "give!  give!"  But  the  sermon  is  the  special 
object  of  its  awful  appetite.  Prayer  is  but  a  prelude  to  the 
solid  dish  of  the  feast.  Singing  is  only  the  Yorkshire -pudding 
that  goes  with  the  beef,  and  the  plum-pudding  that  comes  after 
it.  Sermons,  sermons,  sermons! — it  swallows  them  whole. 
They  are  taken  at  a  gulp,  without  mastication  or  digestion, 
and  wide  open  spring  the  mouths  again,  in  marvelous  multipli- 
cation. 

To  drop  the  dragon,  for  he  is  a  clumsy  fellow,  and  a  some- 
what bulky  figure  to  drag  on  through  a  whole  article,  let  us 
have  a  plain  word  about  the  greed  for  sermons,  so  prevalent  in 
these  latter  days.  We  doubt  whether  there  ever  was  a  time  in 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 


I25 


the  history  of  the  Christian  Church  when  its  ministers  were 
placed  in  so  awkward,  difficult,  and  unjust  a  position  as  they  are 
to-day.  Great,  expensive  edifices  of  worship  are  built,  for 
which  the  builders  run  heavily  in  debt.  That  debt  can  only  be 
handled,  the  interest  on  it  paid,  and  the  principal  reduced,  by 
filling  it  with  a  large  and  interested  congregation.  That  con- 
gregation cannot  be  collected  and  held  without  brilliant  preach- 
ing. Brilliant  preaching  is  scarce,  because,  and  only  because, 
brilliant  men  are  scarce,  and  scarcer  still  the  brilliant  men  who 
have  the  gift  of  eloquence.  So  soon,  therefore,  as  a  man 
shows  that  he  cannot  attract  the  crowd,  "  down  goes  his  house." 
He  may  be  a  scholar,  a  saint,  a  man  whose  example  is  the 
sweetest  sermon  that  a  human  life  ever  uttered,  a  lovely  friend, 
a  faithful  pastor,  a  wise  spiritual  adviser,  and  even  a  sermon- 
izer  of  rare  attainments  and  skill,  but  if  he  cannot  draw  a 
crowd  by  the  attractive  gifts  of  popular  eloquence,  he  must  be 
sacrificed  to  the  exigencies  of  finance.  The  church  must  be 
filled,  the  interest  on  the  debt  must  be  paid,  and  nothing  can 
do  this  but  a  man  who  will  "  draw."  The  whole  thing  is  man- 
aged like  a  theatre.  If  an  actor  cannot  draw  full  houses,  the 
rent  cannot  be  paid.  So  the  actor  is  dismissed  and  a  new  one 
is  called  to  take  his  place. 

There  is  an  old-fashioned  idea  that  a  church  is  built  for  the 
purposes  of  public  worship.  It  is  not  a  bad  idea ;  and  that 
exhibition  of  Christianity  which  presents  a  thousand  lazy  peo- 
ple sitting  bolt  upright  in  their  best  clothes,  gorging  sugar- 
plums, is  not  a  particularly  brilliant  one.  It  was  once  supposed 
that  a  Christian  had  something  to  do,  even  as  a  layman,  and 
that  a  pastor  was  a  leader  and  director  in  Christian  work. 
There  certainly  was  a  time  when  the  burden  of  a  church  was 
not  laid  crushingly  upon  the  shoulders  of  its  minister,  and 
when  Christian  men  and  women  stood  by  the  man  who  was 


r  2  6  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

true  to  his  office  and  true  to  them.  We  seem  to  have  outlived 
it;  and  a  thousand  American  churches,  particularly  among  the 
great  centres  of  population,  are  groaning  over  discomfiture  in 
the  sad  results.  Instead  of  paying  their  own  debts  like  men, 
they  lay  them  on  the  backs  of  their  floundering  ministers,  and 
if  they  cannot  lift  them,  they  go  hunting  for  spinal  columns 
that  will,  or  tongues  that  hold  a  charm  for  their  dissipation. 
It  is  a  wrong  and  a  shame  which  ought  to  be  abolished,  just  as 
soon  as  sensible  men  have  read  this  article. 

Who  was  primarily  in  the  blame  for  this  condition  of  things, 
we  do  not  know;  but  we  suspect  the  ministers  themselves 
ought  to  bear  a  portion  of  it.  Beginning  in  New  England 
years  ago,  the  sermon  in  America  has  always  been  made  too 
much  of.  The  great  preachers,  by  going  into  their  pulpits 
Sunday  after  Sunday  with  their  supreme  intellectual  efforts, 
have  created  the  demand  for  such  efforts.  Metaphysics, 
didactics,  apologetics,  arrayed  in  robes  of  rhetoric,  have  held 
high  converse  with  them.  The  great  theological  wrestlers 
have  made  the  pulpit  their  arena  of  conflict.  Homilies  have 
grown  into  sermons  and  sermons  into  orations.  Preachers  have 
set  aside  the  teacher's  simple  task  for  that  of  the  orator.  Even 
to-day,  they  cannot  see,  or  they  will  not  admit,  that  they  have 
been  in  the  wrong.  With  a  knowledge  of  the  human  mind 
which  cannot  but  make  them  aware  that  no  more  than  a  single 
good  sermon  can  be  digested  by  a  congregation  in  a  day,  and 
that  every  added  word  goes  to  the  glut  of  intellect  and  feeling, 
and  the  confusion  of  impressions,  they  still  go  on  preaching 
twice  and  thrice,  and  seem  more  averse  than  any  others  to  a 
change  of  policy.  It  is  all  intellectual  gormandizing,  and  no 
activity,  and  no  rest  and  reflection.  It  is  all  cram  and  no 
conflict,  and  they  seem  just  as  averse  to  stop  cramming  as 
they  did  before  they  apprehended  and  bemoaned  the  poverty 
»f  its  results. 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 


127 


But  we  are  consuming  too  much  of  their  time.  The  great 
dragon,  with  its  multitudinous  heads,  and  arms,  and  feet,  is  to 
meet  them  next  Sunday  with  its  mouths  all  open.  It  has  done 
nothing  all  the  week  but  sleep,  and  it  is  getting  hungry.  Woe 
to  him  who  has  not  his  two  big  sermons  ready !  Insatiate 
monster,  will  not  one  suffice  ? 

"  No,"  says  the  dragon ;  "  No,"  says  his  keeper  and  feeder. 
Brains,  paper,  ink,  lungs — he  wants  all  you  can  give,  and  you 
must  give  him  all  you  can.  The  house  must  be  filled,  the 
debt  must  be  paid,  and  you  must  be  a  popular  preacher,  or  get 
out  of  the  way.  Meantime,  the  dragon  sleeps,  and  meantime 
the  city  is  badly  ruled;  drunkenness  debauches  the  people 
under  the  shield  of  law,  harlotry  jostles  our  youth  upon  the 
sidewalks,  obscene  literature  stares  our  daughters  out  of  coun- 
tenance from  the  news-stands,  and  little  children,  with  no  play- 
ground but  the  gutter,  and  no  home  but  a  garret,  are  growing 
up  in  ignorance  and  vice.  If  this  lazy,  overfed,  loosely  artic- 
ulated dragon  could  only  be  split  up  into  active  men  and 
women,  who  would  shut  their  mouths  and  open  their  eyes  and 
hands,  we  could  have  something  different.  But  the  sermon  is 
the  great  thing ;  the  people  think  so,  and  the  preachers  agree 
with  them.  We  should  like  to  know  what  the  Master  thinks 
about  it. 

SHEPHERDS  AND  THEIR  FLOCKS. 

A  mischief-breeding  mistake  is  made  when  pastors  and  peo- 
ple fail  to  establish  and  maintain  between  each  other  a  business 
relation  just  as  independent  of  the  spiritual  as  it  is  possible  to 
make  it.  The  physician  may  be,  and  in  multitudes  of  in- 
stances is,  the  dearest  family  friend;  but  he  lives  by  his  pro- 
fession, and  his  services  have  a  recognized  money  value  which 
he  expects  to  receive  without  a  question.  He  would  prefer 


!  2  3  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

perhaps,  to  render  his  services  without  reward,  especially  to 
those  whom  he  loves ;  but  he  has  mouths  to  feed  and  provision 
to  make  for  rainy  days,  and  for  the  days  of  helplessness  that 
come  at  last  to  all.  So,  though  love  and  sympathy,  and  self- 
denial  for  love  and  sympathy's  sake  may  have  actuated  him  in 
all  his  daily  round  of  duty,  he  goes  home  at  night,  takes  down 
his  blotter,  and  enters  his  charges  as  formally  as  if  he  had  been 
selling  farm-produce  or  tin-ware. 

There  is  a  feeling  in  many  parishes  that  it  is  a  gift  by  what- 
soever any  pastor  may  be  profited  by  his  people, — that  a 
pastor  earns  nothing,  and  that  in  all  things  he  is  the  beneficiary 
of  the  parish.  To  make  this  matter  a  thousand  times  worse, 
there  are  pastors  not  a  few  who  take  the  position  to  which  the 
parishes  assign  them,  and  assist  in  perpetuatirrg  the  mistake. 
They  are  men  whose  hands  are  always  open  to  receive  what- 
ever comes;  who  delight  in  donation  parties,  and  who  grasp 
right  and  left,  with  insatiable  greed,  at  gifts.  They  become  so 
mean-spirited  that  they  do  not  like  to  pay  for  anything,  and 
do  not  really  think  it  right  that  they  should  be  called  upon  to 
pay  for  anything.  They  are  sponges  upon  their  people  and 
the  community.  Wherever  they  happen  to  be,  they  "lie 
down  "  on  the  brethren.  There  is  nothing  of  value  that  they 
are  not  glad  to  receive,  and  there  is  nobody  that  they  are  not 
glad  to  be  indebted  to  for  favors.  Sometimes  they  are  ex- 
travagant, and  have  a  graceless  way  of  getting  into  debt,  out 
of  which  they  are  helped  yearly,  and  out  of  which  they  expect 
to  be  helped  yearly.  The  abject  meanness  into  which  a 
pastor  can  sink,  and  the  corresponding  and  consequent  power- 
lessness  into  which  he  can  descend,  find  too  frequent  illustra- 
tion among  the  American  ministry.  It  is  shocking  and  sicken- 
ing that  there  are  some  men  who  seem  forced  by  their  parishes 
to  live  in  this  way,  and  it  is  still  more  disgusting  to  find 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 


129 


who  seem  tolerably  comfortable  and  contented  while  living  in 
this  way.  If  a  man  is  fit  to  preach,  he  is  worth  wages.  If  he 
is  worth  wages,  they  should  be  paid  with  all  the  business  reg- 
ularity that  is  demanded  and  enforced  in  business  life.  There 
is  no  man  in  the  community  who  works  harder  for  the  money 
he  receives  than  the  faithful  minister.  There  is  no  man — in 
whose  work  the  community  is  interested — to  whom  regular 
wages,  that  shall  not  cost  him  a  thought,  are  so  important. 
Of  what  possible  use  in  a  pulpit  can  any  man  be  whose  weeks 
are  frittered  away  in  mean  cares  and  dirty  economies  ?  Every 
month,  or  every  quarter-day,  every  pastor  should  be  sure  that 
there  will  be  placed  in  his  hands,  as  his  just  wages,  money 
enough  to  pay  all  his  expenses.  Then,  without  a  sense  of 
special  obligation  to  anybody,  he  can  preach  the  truth  with 
freedom,  and  prepare  for  his  public  ministrations  without  dis- 
traction. Nothing  more  cruel  to  a  pastor,  or  more  disastrous 
to  his  work,  can  be  done  than  to  force  upon  him  a  feeling 
of  dependence  upon  the  charities  of  his  flock.  The  office 
of  such  a  man  does  not  rise  in  dignity  above  that  of  a  court- 
fool.  He  is  the  creature  of  the  popular  whim,  and  a  preacher 
without  influence  to  those  who  do  not  respect  him  or  his  office 
sufficiently  to  pay  him  the  wages  due  to  a  man  who  devotes 
his  life  to  them.  Manliness  cannot  live  in  such  a  man,  except 
it  be  in  torture — a  torture  endured  simply  because  there  are 
others  who  depend  upon  the  charities  doled  out  to  him. 

Good,  manly  pastors  and  preachers  do  not  want  gifts :  they 
want  wages.  It  is  not  a  kindness  to  eke  out  insufficient  sal- 
aries by  donation  parties  and  by  benefactions  from  the  richer 
members  of  a  flock.  It  is  not  a  merit,  as  they  seem  to  regard 
it,  for  parishes  or  individuals  to  do  this.  It  is  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  indebtedness  which  they  are  too  mean  to  pay  in  a 
business  way.  The  pastor  needs  it  and  they  owe  it,  but  they 
9 


r  30  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

take  to  themselves  the  credit  of  benefactors,  and  place  him  in 
an  awkward  and  a  false  position.  The  influence  of  this  state 
of  things  upon  the  world  that  lies  outside  of  the  sphere  of 
Christian  belief  and  activity  is  bad  beyond  calculation.  We 
have  had  enough  of  the  patronage  of  Christianity  by  a  half- 
scoffing,  half-tolerating  world.  If  Christians  do  not  sufficiently 
recognize  the  legitimacy  of  the  pastor's  calling  to  render  him 
fully  his  just  wages,  and  to  assist  him  to  maintain  his  manly 
independence  before  the  world,  they  must  not  blame  the  world 
for  looking  upon  him  with  a  contempt  that  forbids  approach 
and  precludes  influence.  The  world  will  be  quite  ready  to 
take  the  pastor  at  the  valuation  of  his  friends,  and  the  religion 
he  teaches  at  the  price  its  professors  are  willing  to  pay,  in 
a  business  way,  for  its  ministry. 

THE  RELATIONS  OF  CLERGYMEN  TO  WOMEN. 

Recent  events  have  given  rise  to  a  fresh  discussion  of  the 
relations  of  clergymen  to  women,  some  of  which  have  been 
wise  and  some  widely  otherwise.  It  is  supposed  by  many  that 
the  pastor  is  a  man  peculiarly  subjected  to  temptations  to  un- 
chaste "conversation"  with  the  female  members  of  his  flock. 
It  is  undoubtedly  and  delightfully  true  that  a  popular  preacher 
is  the  object  of  genuine  affection  and  admiration  to  the  women 
who  sit  under  his  ministry.  A  true  woman  respects  brains 
and  a  commanding  masculine  nature ;  but  if  there  is  any  one 
thing  which  she  naturally  chooses  to  hide  from  her  pastor  it  is 
her  own  temptations — if  she  has  any — to  illicit  gratifications. 
She  naturally  desires  to  appear  well  to  him  upon  his  own 
ground  of  Christian  purity.  To  expose  herself  to  his  contempt 
or  condemnation  would  be  forbidden  by  all  her  pretensions, 
professions,  and  natural  instincts.  A  bad  woman  might  under- 
take to  atone  for,  or  to  cover  up,  her  outside  peccadillos  by 


PREA  CHERS  AND  PREA  CHING.  1 3 1 

the  most  friendly  and  considerate  treatment  of  her  pastor,  but 
she  would  not  naturally  take  him  for  her  victim.  It  is  precisely 
with  this  man  that  she  wishes  to  appear  at  her  best.  Any  man 
with  the  slightest  knowledge  of  human  nature  can  see  that  her 
selfish  as  well  as  her  Christian  interests  are  against  any  exhibi- 
tions of  immodest  and  unchaste  desires  in  the  presence  of  her 
spiritual  teacher. 

There  are  only  two  classes  of  women  with  whom  a  minister 
is  liable  to  have  what,  in  the  language  of  the  world,  would  be 
called  "dangerous  intimacies."  The  first  consists  of  discon- 
tented wives — discontented  through  any  cause  connected  with 
their  husbands  or  themselves.  A  woman  finds  herself  mar- 
ried to  a  brute.  She  suffers  long  in  silence ;  her  heart  is  bro- 
ken or  weary,  and  she  wants  counsel,  and  is  dying  for  sympa- 
thy. She  tells  her  story  to  the  one  man  who  is — to  her — guide, 
teacher,  inspirer,  and  friend.  He  gives  her  the  best  counsel 
of  which  he  is  capable,  comforts  her  if  he  can,  sympathizes 
with  her,  treats  her  with  kindness  and  consideration.  That  a 
woman  should,  in  many  instances,  look  upon  such  a  man  as 
little  less  than  a  god,  and  come  to  regard  him  as  almost  her 
only  solace  amid  the  daily  accumulating  trials  of  her  life,  is  as 
natural  as  it  is  for  water  to  run  down  hill.  That  she  should 
respect  him  more  than  she  can  respect  a  brutal  husband — that 
half-an-hour  of  his  society  should  be  worth  more  to  her  heart 
and  her  self-respect  than  the  miserable  years  of  her  bondage 
to  a  cruel  master — is  also  entirely  natural.  He  cannot  help  it, 
nor  can  he  find  temptation  in  it,  unless  he  chooses  to  do  so. 
Women,  under  these  circumstances,  do  not  go  to  their  pastors 
either  to  tempt  or  to  be  tempted. 

There  is  another  class  of  women  who  are  thrown,  or  who 
throw  themselves,  into  what  may  be  called  an  intimate  associa- 
tion with  the  clergy.  It  is  a  class  that  have  nothing  else  to  do 


x  3  2  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

so  pleasant  as  to  be  petting  some  nice  man,  to  whose  presence 
and  society  circumstances  give  them  admission.  They  are  a 
very  harmless  set — gushing  maiden  ladies,  aged  and  discreet 
widows  with  nice  houses,  sentimental  married  women  who, 
with  no  brains  to  lend,  are  fond  of  borrowing  them  for  the  or- 
namentation of  all  possible  social  occasions.  A  popular 
minister  receives  a  great  deal  of  worship  from  this  class,  at 
which,  when  it  is  not  too  irksome,  we  have  no  doubt  he  quietly 
laughs.  The  good  old  female  parishioner  who  declared  that 
her  pastor's  cup  of  tea  would  be  "none  too  good  if  it  were  all 
molasses,"  was  a  fair  type  of  these  sentimental  creatures,  to 
whom  every  minister,  possessing  the  grace  of  courtesy,  is  fair 
game.  To  suppose  that  a  pastor,  sufficiently  putty -headed  to 
be  pleased  with  this  sort  of  worship,  or  sufficiently  manly  to 
be  bored  by  it,  is  in  a  field  of  temptation  to  unchastity,  is 
simply  absurd.  One  is  too  feminine  for  such  temptation,  and 
the  other  altogether  too  masculine. 

When  these  two  classes  are  set  aside,  what  have  we  left  ? 
Virtuous  and  contented  mothers  of  virtuous  daughters — 
daughters  whom  he  baptizes  in  their  infancy,  trains  in  his 
Sunday-school,  marries  when  they  are  married,  and  buries  with 
sympathetic  tears  when  they  die.  In  such  families  as  these 
his  presence  is  a  benediction;  and  to  suppose  that  he  is 
tempted  here,  is  to  suppose  him  a  brute  and  to  deny  the  facts 
of  human  nature.  We  verily  believe  there  is  no  class  in  the 
community  so  little  tempted  as  the  clergy,  and  there  certainly 
is  no  class  surrounded  on  every  side  with  such  dissuasives  from 
unchaste  conduct.  To  a  clergyman,  influence  and  a  good 
name  are  inestimable  treasures.  To  stand  before  confiding 
audiences,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  and  preach  that  which  he 
knows  condemns  himself  in  the  eyes  of  a  single  member  of  his 
flock,  must  be  a  crucifixion  from  whose  tortures  the  bravest 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING.  133 

man  would  shrink.  There  are  bad  men  in  the  pulpit  without 
doubt.  There  is  now  and  then  a  woman  who  would  not 
shrink  from  an  intrigue  with  such,  but  women  do  not  choose 
ministers  for  lovers,  nor  do  ministers,  as  a  class,  find  them- 
selves subjected  to  great  temptations  by  them.  If  ministers 
are  tempted  by  the  circumstances  of  their  office,  they  may  be 
sure  that  they  are  moved  by  their  own  lust  and  enticed,  and 
that  their  office  may  very  profitably  spare  their  services. 

As  a  class,  the  Christian  ministers  of  the  country  are  the 
purest  men  we  have.  We  believe  they  average  better  than  the 
Apostles  did  at  the  first.  Jesus,  in  his  little  company  of  twelve, 
found  one  that  was  a  devil.  The  world  has  improved  until, 
we  believe,  there  is  not  more  than  one  devil  in  a  hundred.  In 
any  scandal  connected  with  the  name  of  a  clergyman  and 
a  female  member  of  his  flock,  the  probabilities  are  all  in  favor 
of  his  innocence.  The  man  of  the  world  who  keeps  his  mis- 
tress, the  sensualist  who  does  not  believe  in  the  purity  of  any 
man,  the  great  community  of  scamps  and  scalawags,  are 
always  ready  to  believe  anything  reflecting  upon  a  clergyman's 
chastity.  It  only  remains  for  clergymen  themselves  to  be 
careful  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  evil.  Nothing  can  be  more 
sure  and  terrible  than  their  punishment  when  guilty  of  pros- 
tituting their  office,  and  nothing  is  so  valuable  to  them  as 
an  unsullied  name.  To  preserve  this,  no  painstaking  can  be 
too  fatiguing,  no  self-denial  too  expensive,  no  weeding  out 
of  all  untoward  associations  too  exacting. 

A  NEW  DEPARTURE. 

One  of  the  great  problems,  apparently  insoluble,  that  has 
vexed  the  pastors  and  churches  of  the  great  cities,  more  par- 
ticularly during  the  last  ten  years,  relates  to  the  means  by 
which  they  shall  get  hold  of  the  great  outlying  world  of  the 


j 34  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

poor.  So  difficult  has  this  question  become,  that  pastors  and 
churches  alike  have  been  in  despair  over  it.  The  poor  have 
not  come  into  the  churches  of  the  rich,  and  few  of  them, 
comparatively,  have  had  the  Gospel  preached  to  them.  The 
results  of  mission-schools  and  missions  have  not  been  satis- 
factory. The  efforts  made  have  not  built  up  self-supporting 
institutions;  those  who  were  benefited  have  been  quite  content 
to  remain  beneficiaries,  and  the  most  strenuous  efforts  have 
been  constantly  necessary  to  keep  schools  and  congregations 
together.  In  the  meantime,  the  working  churches  have  been 
comparatively  small,  and  attended  only  by  the  higher,  classes. 
All  has  gone  wrong.  The  high  and  the  humble,  who,  if  any- 
where in  the  world,  should  come  together  in  the  churches, 
have  kept  themselves  separate,  and  the  work  of  Christianiza- 
tion  has  been  carried  on  slowly,  and  at  a  tremendous  and  most 
discouraging  disadvantage. 

One  of  the  leading  reasons  for  the  unanimous  feeling  of 
friendly  interest  in  the  late  efforts  of  Messrs.  Moody  and 
Sankey,  on  the  part  of  the  ministers  of  all  denominations, 
rested  in  this  difficulty.  These  men  drew  the  poor  to  them  in 
great  numbers,  and  not  only  attracted,  but  helped  them  and 
held  them.  To  learn  how  it  was  done,  ministers  from  all  quar- 
ters assembled  in  convention,  and  the  professional  teachers 
became  eager  learners  at  the  feet  of  the  two  successful  laymen. 
The  first  result  of  this  convention  will  undoubtedly  be  a  mod- 
ification of  pulpit  work — a  modification  so  marked  that  it  will 
amount  to  a  revolution.  The  old-fashioned,  highly  intellectual 
and  largely  theological  sermon  'will  go  out,  and  the  simple 
preaching  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world  and  the 
hortatory  appeal,  will  come  in.  The  ministers,  however,  have 
all  been  tending  toward  this  for  some  years.  The  results  of 
public  discussion  have  been  in  this  direction,  so  that  the  mod- 
ification in  preaching  will  not  be  a  violent  one,  save  in  special 


PREACHERS  AND  PREACHING. 


'35 


instances.  Still,  the  change  may  legitimately  be  noted  as  a 
new  departure,  and  one  on  which  the  highest  hopes  may  be 
built. 

But  the  most  important  part  of  the  problem  is  undoubtedly 
to  be  solved  in  another  way.  For  some  years  it  has  been  seen 
that  the  great  non-church-going  public  has  been  quite  ready  to 
hear  preaching,  provided  they  could  hear  it  in  some  other 
building  than  the  church.  Wherever  the  theatre,  the  opera- 
house,  or  the  hall  has  been  opened,  it  has  been  uniformly 
filled,  and  often  to  overflowing.  In  Boston,  Philadelphia, 
Brooklyn,  Chicago,  and  New  York,  the  poor  have  pressed  into 
the  theatres  and  public  halls  whenever  there  was  preaching  to 
be  heard  that  promised  to  be  worth  the  hearing.  We  are  not 
going  to  stop  to  discuss  the  reason  of  this.  We  simply  allude 
to  it  as  a  most  significant  fact  in  connection  with  the  policy 
of  the  future.  The  distance  between  the  poor,  uneducated 
man,  and  the  rich  and  cultured  church,  is  proved  to  be  too 
great  to  be  spanned  by  a  single  leap. 

The  non-professional  teacher  and  the  public  hall  are  to  furnish 
the  stepping-stones  by  which  the  poor  are  to  reach  the  Church. 
When  a  man  from  the  poorer  walks  of  life — from  the  ranks  of 
the  laborer — stands  in  a  public  hall  where  all  can  come  together 
on  common  ground,  and  talks  to  the  people  in  his  simple, 
straightforward  way,  upon  subjects  connected  with  their  high- 
est interests,  he  furnishes  all  the  means,  and  is  surrounded  by 
all  the  conditions  necessary  to  success  in  his  endeavors.  He 
can  do  what  no  professional  man  can  do  in  any  building 
devoted  to  religious  purposes.  We  make  this  statement,  not 
as  a  matter  of  theory,  but  as  a  matter  of  well-established  fact. 
The  preachers  know  it ;  the  people  know  it.  It  is  a  thing  that 
has  been  marvelously  demonstrated,  and  if  the  Christian  world 
is  not  ready  to  accept  this  demonstration,  with  all  its  practical 
indications,  it  will  show  itself  to  be  criminally  blind. 


T  36  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

Any  new  departure  in  the  methods  of  Christian  work  will, 
therefore,  be  very  incomplete — nugatory,  in  fact — which  does 
not  recognize  lay  preaching  in  public  halls  as  an  important 
part  of  its  policy.  We  have  seen  just  how  the  poor  are  to  be 
reached  and  lifted  into  the  churches,  because  we  have  seen  just 
how  they  have  been  reached  and  lifted  into  the  churches. 
During  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Moody  in  London,  Brooklyn,  Phila- 
delphia, and  New  York,  thousands  whom  no  pulpit  could  ever 
influence  have  found  their  way  through  his  audience-rooms 
into  the  Church.  He  has  officiated  as  a  mediator  between  the 
world  and  the  Church,  and  has  been  a  thousand  times  wiser 
than  he  knew,  or  the  Church  suspected.  He  has  solved  the 
one  grand  problem  that  has  puzzled  the  Church  and  its  minis- 
try for  years,  and  they  will  be  short-sighted  indeed  if  they  fail 
to  make  his  work  the  basis  of  a  permanent  policy. 

In  every  considerable  city  of  the  United  States,  all  Christian 
sects  should  unite  in  the  establishment  of  halls  for  the  work  of 
evangelists — of  men  who  have  a  special  gift  for  preaching  the 
simple  Gospel.  The  example  of  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Moody 
cannot  but  be  fruitful  in  calling  out  from  the  ranks  of  Christian 
laymen  a  little  army  of  talented  and  devoted  workers,  who  will 
enter  into  his  methods  and  swell  the  results  of  his  work.  All 
evangelists  whose  work  is  worth  the  having  should  labor  in  this 
field.  No  man  should  be  in  it  who  cares  more  for  building  up 
one  church  than  another ;  for  one  of  the  prime  conditions  of 
his  success  is,  that  he  shall  not  be  regarded  as  the  mouthpiece 
of  any  Christian  sect  or  party.  The  essential  thing  is,  that  he 
shall  be  a  Christian,  moved  by  the  love  of  God  and  man,  and 
desirous  only  of  bringing  men  to  God.  If  the  Church  does 
not  see  a  new  light  upon  its  path,  poured  upon  it  by  the  events 
to  which  we  have  alluded,  it  must  be  strangely  blind.  But  it 
does  see  the  new  light,  and  we  believe  that  its  leaders  and 
teachers  are  ready  to  walk  in  it. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE. 

MR.  TYNDALL'S  ADDRESS. 

Mr.  Tyndall  recently  delivered  a  notable  address  before  the 
British  Association — notable  for  its  brilliant  panoramic  presen- 
tation of  the  various  philosophies  and  speculations  concerning 
God  and  Nature,  and  for  his  own  personal  confession.  De- 
mocritus,  Epicurus,  Lucretius,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Copernicus, 
Giordano,  Bruno,  Pere  Gassendi,  Bishop  Butler,  Darwin,  Her- 
bert Spencer,  and  John  Stuart  Mill  are  all  passed  in  review, 
their  respective  discoveries,  speculations  and  opinions  presented 
and  commented  upon,  and,  at  last,  we  get  at  Mr.  Tyndall  him- 
self. It  would  be  hard  to  find,  in  equal  compass,  so  valuable 
a  mass  of  information  on  the  subject  discussed,  and  for  this  the 
intelligent  reading  public  will  be  grateful;  but,  after  all,  the 
great  English  scientist  teaches  us  absolutely  nothing  about  the 
origin  of  matter,  motion  and  life.  We  rise  from  the  perusal  of 
his  aJdress  with  no  new  light  on  the  great  problems  he  presents. 
The  existence  of  matter  is  a  mystery,  the  origin  and  perpetua- 
tion of  life  are  mysteries.  God  is  a  mystery.  The  sources  of 
the  force  that  builds,  and  holds,  and  wheels  the  worlds,  endows 
every  particle  of  matter  with  might  which  it  never  for  a  moment 
relinquishes  in  its  myriad  combinations, — vital  and  chemical, — 
adapts  organisms  to  conditions  and  conditions  to  organisms, 
and  weaves  all  into  cosmical  harmony,  are  brooded  over  by 
clouds  which  science  can  never  pierce. 


!  33  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

There  are  limits  to  thought,  and  none  "by  searching"  can 
find  out  God.  Because  Mr.  Tyndall  cannot  find  God,  is  there, 
therefore,  no  God  ?  He  says  :  "  Either  let  us  open  our  doors 
freely  to  the  conception  of  creative  acts,  or,  abandoning  them, 
let  us  radically  change  our  notions  of  matter."  In  other  words, 
he  would  say  to  us  that  there  is  a  God  who  created  all  things, 
and  endowed  them  with  the  principle  of  life,  or  matter  has  an 
innate  power  to  evolve  life  in  organic  forms.  The  alternative 
is  as  inevitable  as  it  is  simple,  and  our  scientific  teacher  does 
not  hesitate  to  say  that  he  finds  in  matter  "the  promise  and 
potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of  life."  This  declaration 
he  endeavors  to  soften  by  intimations  that  matter  itself  may 
possibly  have  no  existence,  save  in  our  consciousness,  and  that 
all  we  know  of  it  is  that  our  senses  have  been  acted  upon  by 
powers  and  qualities  which  we  attribute  to  it.  The  existence 
of  matter  therefore,  is  not  an  established  fact,  but  an  inference. 
The  logic  of  his  doctrine  leads,  of  course,  to  what,  in  common 
language,  is  called  "  annihilation."  If  life  is  evolved  by  the 
potency  of  matter,  it  depends  for  its  continual  existence  on  the 
potency  of  matter.  When  any  vital  organism  dissolves,  that 
is  the  end  of  it.  Its  matter  passes  into  new  forms,  and  evolves 
new  life.  Thought  is  a  product  of  matter.  Love,  joy,  sorrow, 
heroism,  worship  are  products  of  matter.  All  this  Mr.  Tyndall 
sees  and  accepts. 

Well,  who  knows  but  God  is  a  product  of  matter  ?  Mr. 
Tyndall  himself  is  a  pretty  brilliant  and  powerful  product  of 
matter :  who  knows  but  that,  by  the  infinite  evolutions  of  this 
eternal  matter,  a  being  has  been  produced  so  powerful  that  he 
has  been  able  to  take  the  reins  of  the  Universe,  and  to  have 
everything  his  own  way  ?  It  has  evolved  man,  and  thus  pro- 
duced a  form  of  life  that  lords  it  over  seas  and  storms,  that 
controls  animal  life,  that  builds  enormous  cities,  that  threads 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE.  r^ 

the  world  with  telegraphs,  railroads  and  cables,  writes  books, 
measures  the  heavens,  mounts  from  power  to  power.  Is  it  any 
more  remarkable  that  it  should  evolve  or  create  a  God,  who, 
going  from  might  to  might  and  glory  to  glory,  through  infinite 
ages,  should  have  something  to  say  about  Mr.  Tyndall  and  the 
rest  of  us  ?  Matter  was  just  as  likely  to  possess  the  power  to 
evolve  a  "  moral  and  intelligent  Governor  of  the  Universe  "  as 
to  evolve  a  man.  So  perhaps  we  have  a  God  after  all ! 

We  sympathize  with  Mr.  Tyndall — heartily — in  his  enmity 
to  bigotry  and  ecclesiastical  domination,  but  the  intolerance  with 
which  science  has  been  treated  in  various  ages  of  the  world 
deserves  much  of  charitable  consideration.  Men  in  their 
ignorance  have  seen  that  certain  doctrines  which  they  thought 
they  found  in  what  they  in  all  honesty  believed  to  be  the 
revealed  word  of  God  were  controverted  by  scientific  men. 
They  have  clung  to  their  Bible  because  they  supposed  that, 
with  their  views  of  the  Bible,  their  religion  and  their  own  per- 
sonal salvation  were  identified.  Let  us  be  charitable  to  such. 
Not  much  can  be  expected  of  men  who  are  evolved  from  mat- 
ter !  There  must  be  a  great  choice  in  matter  when  the  produc- 
tion of  men  is  concerned,  and  really  matter  is  doing  better 
than  it  did !  When  Mr.  Tyndall  can  sa'y  what  he  says,  and  do 
what  he  does,  without  hinderance  and  without  any  danger  of 
dungeon  or  fagot,  it  seems  as  if  matter  had  done  a  good  deal 
to  deserve  his  gratitude  and  ours.  After  all,  intolerance  and 
bigotry  were  in  matter  to  begin  with.  They  have  simply  been 
evolved !  The  promise  of  them  and  the  potency  to  produce 
them  were  in  them  at  the  start ! 

In  view  of  the  materialism  of  Mr.  Tyndall,  what  he  says 
concerning  the  religious  element  in  life  is  about  as  feeble  non- 
sense as  that  in  which  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  indulges  in  his 
"  Literature  and  Dogma."  With  Mr.  Arnold  religion  is  moral- 


I40  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

ity  warmed  and  heightened  by  emotion.  Mr.  Tyndall  speaks 
of  the  "immovable  basis  of  the  religious  sentiment  in  the  emo- 
tional nature  of  man."  What  does  he  mean  ?  Does  he  mean 
that  there  is  the  possibility  of  religious  sentiment  in  a  man  who 
does  not  believe  in  the  existence  of  God  as  his  creator,  pre- 
server, benefactor,  father,  governor — the  source  and  sum  of  all 
moral  perfections  ?  If  he  does,  then  the  less  he  talks  about  re- 
ligion the  better,  for  he  can  only  do  so  to  manifest  his  childish 
lack  of  comprehension  of  the  subject.  If  man  is  evolved  by 
the  potency  of  matter — if  there  is  no  soul  within  him  that  bears 
a  filial  relation  to  the  great  soul  of  the  universe,  and  will  ex- 
ist when  its  material  dwelling  goes  back  to  dust;  if  there  is  no 
ordaining  intelligence  behind  all  moral  law;  if  there  is  no  ob- 
ject of  worship,  or  faith,  or  trust,  or  love,  or  reverence  to  be 
apprehended  by  the  heart — what  a  mockery  is  it  to  talk  about 
the  religious  sentiment!  We  are  assured  by  Mr.  Tyndall  that 
the  region  of  emotion  is  the  proper  sphere  of  religion.  The 
statement  shows  how  shallow  his  apprehensions  are  of  this 
great  subject.  A  religion  which  touches  neither  motives,  char- 
acter nor  conduct  may  well  pass  for  little  with  any  man;  and 
we  really  do  not  see  why  Mr.  Tyndall  should  pay  any  attention 
to  it  whatever.  Even  science  can  be  ignorant  of  the  simplest 
things,  and  it  certainly  does  not  become  it  to  be  supercilious 
or  contemptuous  in  its  treatment  of  those  who  question  its  dicta 
when  it  invades  the  region  of  their  faith. 

The  question  will  naturally  occur  to  many  minds,  whether 
Mr.  Tyndall  gives  us  anything  worthy  to  take  the  place  of 
that  which  he  undertakes  to  read  out  of  our  beliefs.  Does  his 
materialistic  view  dignify  human  life  and  destiny,  tend  to  en- 
large and  strengthen  the  motives  which  bind  us  to  virtue,  give 
us  comfort  in  affliction,  add  new  meaning  to  existence  and  ex- 
perience? Not  at  all.  He  brings  us  out  of  matter;  he  gives 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE. 


141 


us  back  to  matter.  He  makes  us  indebted  to  matter  for  all 
our  joys  and  for  all  our  sorrows,  and  places  us  to  walk  on  a 
level  with  brute  life,  only  our  heads  being  above  it.  That  is 
all,  and  he  must  not  be  disappointed  to  see  the  Christian  world 
turning  away  from  his  conclusions,  with  content  in  its  faith  and 
pity  for  him.  He  knows  nothing  on  this  subject  beyond  the 
rest  of  us.  He  offers  us  a  material  universe  that  made  itself, 
stamped  with  laws  that  made  themselves,  and  informed  with 
the  promise  and  the  potency  of  all  forms  of  life.  This  is  his 
speculation,  and  it  is  worth  just  as  much  as  the  speculation 
of  a  peasant  and  no  more.  He  offers  it  to  those  who  believe 
that  nothing  was  ever  made  without  a  maker;  that  nothing 
was  ever  designed  without  a  designer;  that  no  law  was  ever 
given  without  a  lawgiver — in  short,  that  power  and  intelli- 
gence necessarily  precede  all  results  of  power  that  betray  intel- 
ligence, through  the  analogies  apprehended  by  the  human  mind. 
We  do  not  see  how  his  confession  can  do  more  than  prove  how 
utterly  incompetent  the  pure  scientist  is  to  apprehend  religion 
and  its  fundamental  truths. 

SCIENCE  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 

In  the  current  discussions  of  the  relations  of  Christianity  to 
science,  there  is  one  fact  that  seems  to  have  dropped  out  of  no- 
tice; yet  it  is  full  of  meaning,  and  deserves,  for  Christianity's 
sake,  to  be  raised  and  kept  before  the  public.  Who,  or  what, 
has  raised  science  to  its  present  commanding  position?  What 
influence  is  it  that  has  trained  the  investigator,  educated  the 
people,  and  made  it  possible  for  the  scientific  man  to  exist,  and 
the  people  to  comprehend  him?  Who  built  Harvard  College  ? 
What  motives  form  the  very  foundation-stones  of  Yale?  To 
whom,  and  to  what,  are  the  great  institutions  of  learning,  scat  - 
tered  all  over  this  country,  indebted  for  their  existence  ?  There 


,  4  2  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

is  hardly  one  of  these  that  did  not  have  its  birth  in,  and  has 
not  had  its  growth  from,  Christianity.  The  founders  of  all 
these  institutions,  more  particularly  those  of  greatest  influence 
and  largest  facilities,  were  Christian  men,  who  worked  simply 
in  the  interest  of  their  Master.  The  special  scientific  schools 
that  have  been  grafted  upon  these  institutions  are  children  of 
the  same  parents,  reared  and  endowed  for  the  same  work. 
Christianity  is  the  undoubted  and  indisputable  mother  of  the 
scientific  culture  of  the  country.  But  for  her,  our  colleges 
would  never  have  been  built — our  common  schools  would 
never  have  been  instituted.  Wherever  a  free  Christianity  has 
gone,  it  has  carried  with  it  education  and  culture. 

The  public,  or  a  considerable  portion  of  it,  seems  to  forget 
this,  or  has  come  to  regard  Christianity  as  opposed  to  science 
in  its  nature  and  aims.  It  is  almost  regarded,  by  many  minds, 
as  the  friend  of  darkness,  as  the  opponent  of  free  inquiry  and 
the  enslaver  of  thought.  The  very  men  who  have  been  reared 
by  her  in  some  instances  turn  against  her,  disowning  their 
mother  and  denying  the  sources  of  their  attainments,  and  to- 
day she  has  herself  almost  forgotten  that  it  is  her  hand  that 
has  reared  all  the  temples  of  learning,  framed  the  educational 
policy  of  the  nation,  and,  with  wide  sacrifice  of  treasure,  reared 
the  very  men  who  are  now  defaming  her. 

Now,  if  Christianity  is  the  foe  of  science,  has  she  not  taken 
a  singular  method  of  demonstrating  her  enmity?  To-day,  as 
freely  as  ever,  she  is  feeding  the  fountains  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge. Her  most  devoted  ministers,  crowned  with  the  finest 
culture  of  the  time,  preside  over  the  schools  which  educate  her 
enemies.  Where  is  the  sign  of  her  illiberality,  the  evidence  of 
her  timidity,  the  show  of  a  lack  of  confidence  in  ultimate  re- 
sults in  all  this?  The  easily  demonstrable,  nay,  the  patent 
truth  is,  that  Christianity  was  the  first,  as  she  remains  the  fast 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE.  I43 

and  fostering,  friend  of  science;  and  all  attempts  to  place  her 
in  a  false  position  will  be  sure  to  react  upon  those  who  engage 
in  them.  The  devotion  of  the  Christian  Church  of  this  country 
to  education  is  one  of  the  most  notable  facts  in  its  history;  and 
there  is  nothing  to  which  it  points  with  so  much  pride  and  sat- 
isfaction as  to  its  educational  institutions. 

The  radical  difference  in  the  stand-points  of  the  two  par- 
ties in  this  great  controversy  explains  the  controversy,  and 
shows  its  motives  at  their  sources.  To  the  man  of  faith  all 
science  is  a  knowledge  of  God,  through  a  knowledge  of  his 
works  and  his  processes.  That  which  increases  the  knowledge 
of  the  great  Creator  of  all,  through  the  study  of  His  creations 
and  His  methods,  is  regarded  as  a  purely  Christian  work. 
That  which  enlarges  the  mind  of  man,  gives  him  power  over 
nature,  carries  him  farthest  toward  the  Being  in  whose  image 
he  was  made,  comes. within  the  office  of  Christian  teaching. 
Science  is  thus  the  handmaid  of  Christianity,  and  will,  in  all 
coming  ages,  be  cherished  as  such.  To  the  man  of  science 
who  rejects  faith,  science  is  simply  the  study  of  nature.  He 
sees  no  God  where  the  Christian  apprehends  him.  He  finds 
in  matter  all  the  potencies  which  produce  its  combinations, 
qualities,  life.  He  dismisses  a  personal  God  from  the  universe, 
and  makes  of  himself  only  an  exalted  brute,  whose  physical 
death  ends  him.  The  real  controversy  touches  simply  the 
question  of  the  existence  of  a  God.  The  question  of  revela- 
tion is  practically  nothing  to  the  ultra  scientist,  because  he 
does  not  believe  in  the  personality  revealed. 

Now,  if  this  is  simply  a  question  of  opinion,  we  would  like 
to  ask — granting  for  the  nonce  that  there  has  been  no  demon- 
stration on  either  side — which  opinion  has  been  and  is  most 
fruitful  of  good  results  to  the  world  ?  Can  motives  be  found 
in  that  of  the  ultra  scientist  sufficient  to  elevate  a  race  to 


I44  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

knowledge  and  culture  ?  Would  our  country  be  as  learned, 
enlightened,  scientific,  and  polite  as  it  is  to-day,  if  a  com- 
munity of  ultra  scientists  had  settled  Plymouth  colony  and 
Massachusetts  Bay  ?  We  presume  that  no  man  would  be  so 
simple  as  to  suppose  it  would.  Where,  in  that  science  which 
recognizes  no  personal  God,  is  to  be  seen  the  motive  of  self- 
sacrifice  which  would  have  founded  the  institutions  of  learning 
that  are  the  glory  of  our  country  ?  It  is  not  there ;  and,  if 
not,  is  a  lie  better  than  the  truth  ?  Has  it  more  vitality,  more 
munificence,  a  better  estimate  of  human  nature,  more  power 
for  human  good,  more  liberality,  than  the  truth  ?  These  are 
questions  that  it  would  be  well  for  scientific  men  to  answer  in 
a  scientific  way.  Simply  to  show  that  the  Christian  idea  of  a 
personal  God  is  one  which  leads  to  the  abnegation  of  self  in 
devotion  to  the  common  good ;  simply  to  show  that  there  is 
something  in  the  Christian  scheme  which  furnishes  motives  for 
making  mankind  happier  and  better,  and  happier  and  better 
than  any  scientific  affirmation  or  negation  can  make  them,  is 
scientifically  to  demonstrate  that  a  personal  God  lives,  and 
that  Christianity  is  a  scheme  of  truth.  Would  it  be  hard  to 
show  this  ?  It  certainly  would  be  impossible  to  show  the  con- 
trary. 

The  strife  between  science  and  Christianity  is  misunderstood 
on  the  part  of  Christianity.  It  goes  deeper  than  Christianity. 
It  is  a  strife  between  those  who  do  not  believe  in  a  personal 
God  and  those  who  do,  of  all  faiths,  all  over  the  world.  That 
settled,  the  scientific  opponents  of  Christianity  would  leave  the 
field  or  occupy  it.  Until  their  proposition  is  proved  or  aban- 
doned, we  suggest  that  it  will  be  a  decent  thing  for  them  to 
treat  with  respect  the  mother  who  bore  them,  and  cover  with 
their  charity  the  paps  they  have  sucked. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE.  I45 

BY  THEIR  FRUITS. 

Was  it  Thackeray  who  said  that  the  difference  between 
genius  and  talent  was  the  difference  between  the  length  of  two 
maggots  ?  It  was  worthy  of  him,  at  least,  and  like  him. 
When  a  man  gets  large  enough  to  know  that  he  is  almost  infi- 
nitely small,  he  is  tolerably  ripe.  When  he  becomes  wise 
enough  to  realize  that  his  wisdom  is  folly,  his  profoundest 
learning  ignorance,  and  his  opinions,  drawn  from  partial  views 
of  truth  and  its  relations,  of  little  value,  he  has  risen  into  a 
realm  where  he  drops  his  robe  of  pride,  and  drapes  himself  in 
the  garment  of  docility.  The  simplicity  and  the  teachableness 
of  great  men  have  been  the  wonder  of  the  vulgar  through  all 
time.  At  the  beginning  of  our  late  civil  war,  a  capitalist  from 
the  country  came  to  New  York  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring 
a  stock  of  financial  information.  What  was  to  be  the  effect  of 
this  war  upon  the  finances  of  the  country  ?  How  should  he 
manage  to  save  his  wealth  ?  How  should  he  manage  to 
increase  it?  These  were  the  questions  he  put  to  the  wisest 
financier  he  knew.  The  old  man  pointed  to  an  apple-woman 
across  the  street.  "  Go  and  ask  her,"  he  said ;  "  she  knows 
just  as  much  about  it  as  I  do."  Yet  opinions  were  as  plenty  as 
blackberries,  in  Wall  street,  while  the  results  of  the  war,  as 
they  accumulated,  proved  that  they  were  beyond  human  sagac- 
ity to  foresee,  and  that  the  man  most  competent  to  foresee 
them  had  no  more  financial  prescience  than  the  ignorant  apple- 
woman. 

There  is  a  realm  of  inquiry — indeed,  there  are  many  realms 
of  inquiry — where  the  opinions  and  speculations  of  one  man 
are  just  as  valuable  as  those  of  another  man — no  more  so,  no 
less — for  those  of  both  are  valueless.  The  speculations  of  such 
a  man  as  Mr.  Tyndall  on  the  origin  of  life  attract  a  great  deal 
of  attention ;  yet  Mr.  Tyndall  knows  just  as  much  about  the 


I46  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

origin  of  life  as  the  apple-woman  on  the  corner,  and  no  more, 
The  speculations  about  development  and  atoms,  and  molecules, 
form,  perhaps,  an  elevated  amusement.  They  are  better  than 
the  Hippodrome  and  the  Negro  Minstrels,  without  being  more 
instructive.  It  is  better  to  speculate  on  the  atomic  theory 
than  to  play  battledoor  and  shuttlecock.  It  is  better  to  specu- 
late a  personal  God  out  of  the  universe  than  to  go  on  a  spree — 
better  to  ignore  his  work  than  to  mar  it.  But  the  whole  thing 
rises  no  higher  than  elevated  amusement.  It  does  not  give 
even  the  smallest  basis  for  sound  opinion.  All  these  specula- 
tors, wrapped  around  with  scientific  reputations,  battering 
vainly  against  the  limits  of  thought  and  scientific  knowledge, 
and  coming  back  with  their  reports  of  having  seen  something 
more  than  their  fellows,  are  pretenders — to  be  praised,  perhaps, 
for  their  enterprise,  but  laughed  at  for  their  conclusions. 

Mr.  Tyndall  finds  in  matter  the  promise  and  the  potency  of 
all  forms  and  qualities  of  life.  Who  put  the  promise  and  the 
potency  there  ?  Ah !  that  is  the  question,  and  Mr.  Tyndall 
has  not  solved  it.  He  goes  no  farther,  perhaps,  than  to  say 
that  he  finds  them  there.  Has  he  found  them  there  ?  In 
what  form  have  they  presented  themselves  to  his  scientific 
investigation  ?  Can  he  show  what  he  has  found  ?  Alas  !  he 
has  found  nothing  new — seen  nothing  that  others  have  not 
seen.  He  has  only  come  to  a  personal  conclusion  and  indulged 
in  a  personal  speculation,  and  that  conclusion  and  that  specu- 
lation are  not  only  unscientific,  but  they  are  valueless. 

Is  there  not  some  way — some  scientific  way — in  which  a  just 
conclusion  may  be  arrived  at  concerning  this  great  subject  ? 
If  we  should  stand  at  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and  know 
the  want  of  bread,  would  it  not  be  very  unscientific  for  us  to 
get  together  a  bundle  of  seeds  or  germs,  and  speculate  as  to 
which  would  be  the  most  likely  to  give  us  bread  ?  Would  it 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE.  !4y 

not  be  better  to  plant  every  seed,  label  its  bed,  watch  its 
growth,  and  examine  its  fruits  ?  Would  not  that  be  the  scien- 
tific way  of  ascertaining  the  nature  and  characteristics  of  the 
great  power  that  was  to  feed  us  ?  Certainly  that  seed  which 
would  yield  the  best  results,  and  address  itself  most  directly 
and  beneficently  to  our  wants,  would  be  the  one  to  which  we 
should  give  our  faith.  To  do  anything  else  would  be  to  rebel 
against  the  law  of  our  nature.  To  do  anything  else  would  be 
irrational  and  unscientific. 

Well,  certain  seeds  have  been  planted  in  the  world  of  mind. 
They  have  borne,  in  various  times,  and  in  many  countries, 
their  legitimate  fruits.  Can  we  not  find,  in  the  adaptation  of 
those  fruits  to  human  want,  a  scientific  conclusion  concerning 
the  tree  or  plant  that  bears  them  ?  Is  it  not  strictly  scientific 
to  conclude  that  the  better  the  fruit,  and  the  better  its  results, 
the  more  thoroughly  is  the  seed  vitalized  by  everlasting  and 
essential  truth  ?  If  certain  ideas  of  the  nature  and  character 
of  God,  and  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul — if  certain  ideas 
of  human  responsibility — have  dignified  humanity  more,  ele- 
vated it  more,  civilized  it  more,  purified  its  morals,  sweetened 
its  society,  stimulated  its  hopes,  assuaged  its  sorrows,  developed 
its. benevolence,  and  repressed  its  selfishness,  more  than  any 
other  ideas,  are  not  those  ideas  scientifically  ascertained  to  be 
nearer  the  truth  than  any  others  ?  If  they  are  not,  then  we 
misunderstand  the  nature  and  the  processes  of  science. 

There  has  been  abroad  in  the  world,  for  many  centuries,  an 
idea,  advanced  and  maintained  by  more  religions  than  one, 
that  there  is  at  the  head  of  the  universe  an  Almighty  God, — a 
Spirit  who  has  created  all  material  things,  and  informed  them 
with  law, — a  Spirit  that  is  in  itself  the  source  of  all  life.  There 
has  been  the  further  idea  that  this  God  is  a  person,  who, 
though  His  mode  of  being  is  beyond  human  ken,  recognizes 


148 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


the  persons  He  has  created,  loves  them,  regards  them  as  His 
family,  and  holds  them  personally  responsible  to  His  moral 
law.  There  has  been  the  further  idea  that  mankind,  in  conse- 
quence of  their  common  parentage,  are  a  band  of  brothers 
and  sisters,  who  owe  to  one  another  good-will  and  unselfish 
service.  There  has  been  a  further  idea  that  this  personal  God 
is  a  being  to  be  worshiped  as  the  sum  and  source  of  all  perfec- 
tion— to  be  thanked,  praised,  prayed  to,  in  the  full  recognition 
of  filial  relationship,  and  a  full  faith  in  His  providential  and 
paternal  care.  Out  of  this  group  of  ideas  has  come  the 
world's  best  civilization.  Out  of  it  have  come  churches  and 
schools,  and  colleges,  and  hospitals,  and  benign  governments 
and  missions,  and  a  thousand  institutions  of  brotherly  benevo- 
lence. From  it  have  sprung  untold  heroisms.  It  has  recognized 
human  rights.  It  has  had  no  smaller  aim  than  that  of  human 
perfection.  It  has  armed  millions  of  men  and  women  with  forti- 
tude to  bear  the  ills  of  life.  It  has  made  society  safe  wherever 
it  has  been  dominant;  it  has  transformed  death  into  a  gate 
that  opens  upon  immortality.  Associated  with  a  thousand 
dogmas  invented  by  mistaken  men,  it  has  still  done  all  that  has 
been  done  to  redeem  the  world  to  peace  and  goodness;  and 
if  this  group  of  ideas  has  not  scientifically  demonstrated  itself 
to  be  nearer  the  truth  than  are  all  the  negations  and  specula- 
tions of  scientific  dreamers,  then  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
science. 

PRAYERS  AND  PILLS. 

A  singular  article,  containing  an  unprecedented  proposition, 
appeared  recently  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  entitled  :  "  The 
Prayer  for  the  Sick :  Hints  towards  a  serious  attempt  to  esti- 
mate its  value."  Prof.  Tyndall  regarded  it  as  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  claim  from  him  a  word  of  introduction.  He  thinks 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SCIENCE. 


149 


it  quite  desirable  to  have  clearer  notions  than  we  now  possess 
of  the  action  of  "Providence"  in  physical  affairs.  The  propo- 
sition of  the  writer  is  to  establish  a  scientific,  experimental  test 
of  the  power  of  prayer  in  the  healing  of  the  sick.  He  asks : 
"  that  one  single  ward,  or  hospital,  under  the  care  of  first-rate 
physicians  and  surgeons"  (including  Sir  Henry  Thompson, 
we  presume,  the  author  of  the  proposition),  "containing  cer- 
tain numbers  of  persons  afflicted  with  those  diseases  which 
have  been  best  studied,  and  of  which  the  mortality  rates  are 
best  known,  whether  the  diseases  are  those  which  are  treated 
by  medical  or  by  surgical  remedies,  should  be,  during  a  period 
of  not  less,  say,  than  three  or  five  years,  made  the  object  of 
special  prayer  by  the  whole  body  of  the  faithful,  and  that,  at 
the  end  of  that  time,  the  mortality  rates  should  be  compared 
with  the  past  rates,  and  also  with  that  of  other  leading  hospi- 
tals, similarly  well  managed,  during  the  same  period."  Prof. 
Tyndall,  in  his  introduction,  says :  "  Two  opposing  parties  here 
confront  each  other — the  one  affirming  the  habitual  intrusion 
of  supernatural  power,  in  answer  to  the  petitions  of  men ;  the 
other  questioning,  if  not  denying,  any  such  intrusion." 

It  seems,  therefore,  that  the  whole  question  of  Providence 
and  prayer  is  to  be  decided  by  this  experiment,  and  it  will  also 
be  seen  that  Christianity  itself  will  thus  be  placed  on  trial. 
This  is  rather  a  large  matter  to  be  disposed  of  in  the  ward  of 
a  single  hospital,  and,  as  there  is  so  much  at  stake,  both 
parties  ought  to  be  well  agreed  as  to  the  fairness  of  the  exper- 
iment. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  to  begin  with,  that  a  proposition  of 
this  kind  could  not  possibly  come  from  a  man  who,  conscious  of 
his  own  unworthiness,  and  humbly  subordinating  his  will  to  that 
of  God,  expresses  his  earnest  desires  in  prayer.  No  Christian 
and  no  body  of  Christians — not  even  "  the  whole  body  of  the 


!  c;  0  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

faithful" — would  consent  to  have  the  question  of  God's  provi- 
dential interference  in  human  affairs  decided  for  the  world  by 
the  strength  of  their  hold  upon  the  Almighty  arm,  through  the 
medium  of  their  prayers.  The  experiment  would  be  preposter- 
ous, and  almost  blasphemously  presumptuous.  No  body  of 
reverent  Christian  physicians  would  engage  in  such  a  competi- 
tion. With  all  the  fair  seeming  of  the  proposition,  it  is  evi- 
dently impossible  to  be  acted  upon.  The  issue  is  tremendous. 
The  whole  question  of  the  supernatural  in  human  affairs,  and 
the  whole  question  of  Christianity  based  upon  it,  would  be  in- 
volved in  that  issue ;  and  every  Christian  would  shrink  in  terror 
from  the  presumption  that  the  power  of  his  poor  petitions  was 
relied  upon  to  decide  so  vital  a  matter.  So,  if  the  experiment 
were  tried,  it  would  be  instituted  and  executed  by  men  who 
believe  neither  in  prayer  nor  Providence,  and  who  would  con- 
duct it  with  reference  to  their  own  ends.  The  world  would 
not  trust  them,  and  the  world  ought  not  to  trust  them. 

But  supposing  the  physicians  were  equally  divided  between 
Christian  and  unchristian,  and  that  the  two  bodies  were 
placed  in  watch  of  each  other:  would  it  be  altogether  fair  to 
give  the  ward  or  hospital  subjected  to  the  experiment  any 
medical  treatment  whatever?  Physicians  make  mistakes 
sometimes,  and  thwart  the  God  of  nature,  who  happens  at  the 
same  time  to  be  the  God  of  Providence.  Evidently  a  hospital 
without,  would  offer  a  fairer  chance  for  experiment  than  one 
with,  physicians.  Then,  if  the  result  were  not  on  the  side  of 
the  skeptics,  would  they  admit  that  the  God  of  Providence 
cured  the  patients  in  answer  to  prayer,  or  would  they  claim 
that  the  unaided  power  of  nature  was  the  healing  agent?  Who 
knows,  in  this  world  of  medical  empircism,  whether  the  great 
obstacle  to  the  efficacy  of  the  prayers  of  the  faithful  is  not  the 
medical  profession  itself?  And  who  knows  that  Providence 


CHRIS TIANITY  AND  SCIENCE  x  5  x 

does  not  withhold  its  cures  that  the  world  may  learn,  in  the 
long  years,  that  it  is  best  to  do  without  the  medical  profession 
altogether  ? 

We  take  it  for  granted  that  the  writer  of  the  strange  propo- 
sition we  are  considering  belongs  to  what  is  denominated  "  the 
regular  profession."  Now  if  there  is  anything  thoroughly  well 
known  among  the  people,  it  is  that  "the  regular  profession" 
object  to  any  system  of  treatment  not  "  regular,"  and  doubt  the 
reality  of  any  cure  not  wrought  by  "regular"  means.  Is  there 
any  medical  society  that  would  permit  its  members  to  co-oper- 
ate with  irregular  measures  like  those  which  this  man  pro- 
poses? Would  not  this  be  equivalent  to  a  consultation  with 
Providence — a  practitioner  not  recognized  by  the  societies 
generally?  Is  prayer  regarded  as  an  article  of  the  materia 
medica?  Is  not  this  whole  proposition  grossly  irregular,  and 
does  it  not  become  the  profession  to  set  upon  this  writer  who 
thus  proposes  to  compromise  his  position  and  make  an  exam- 
ple of  him?  If  not,  then  we  have  a  proposition  to  make 
which  is  entirely  practicable.  It  is  one  in  which  a  great  mul- 
titude of  people  would  be  much  interested.  Let  us  institute  an 
experiment  to  see  what  system  of  medicine  Providence  favors. 
Our  doctor  of  the  Contemporary  Re-view  is  utterly  impractica- 
ble, but  he  manifests  a  disposition  to  try  experiments,  and 
shows  a  healthy  fearlessness  of  professional  proscription.  We 
propose,  therefore,  that  a  hospital  be  run  three  years  by  the 
regular  profession,  then  three  years  by,  say,  the  hydropathists, 
and  then  three  years  by  the  homceopathists.  Let  each  body 
of  practitioners  have  the  benefit  not  only  of  the  "general 
prayer,"  or  prayer  for  "  all  men,"  but  of  special  prayer.  Thus 
the  moral  effect  of  the  use  of  material  remedies  would  be  se- 
cured to  all,  and  we  should  learn  what  system  of  medicine 
Providence  favors,  or  the  one  which  interferes  least  with  its 


!  s  2  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS.  , 

laws.  Here  now  is  something  entirely  practical,  and  there  are 
many  people  interested  in  the  decision  of  this  question  where 
one  is  seriously  in  doubt  about  the  other.  The  world  is  im- 
mensely, nay  vitally,  concerned  in  the  decision  to  be  arrived  at 
through  an  experiment  like  this  ?  Shall  we  have  it  ? 

We  rather  think  not.  We  should  really  like  to  know  which 
system  of  medical  treatment  the  God  of  Providence  or  the  God 
of  Nature  favors.  Christendom  must  give  up  its  Christianity 
or  believe  in  prayer — prayer  for  the  sick — prayer  for  the  well. 
It  will  not  consent  that  that  system  of  religion  on  which  is 
based  the  highest  civilization  of  the  world  shall  be  decided  for 
or  against  by  the  power  of  its  prayers  over  Providence.  No 
candid  man  would  ever  ask,  and  no  sane  man  expect,  it  to  do 
so.  So  we  will  leave  the  scientist  to  his  Nature  and  the  Chris- 
tian to  his  Providence  in  the  practical  and  most  desirable 
experiment  which  we  propose.  Let  us  get  at  the  truth.  If  it 
is  not  "irregular"  to  try  an  experiment  with  Providence,  it 
ought  not  to  be  irregular  to  try  one  with  less  considerable  per- 
sonages. But  that  would  put  the  medical  profession  on  trial, 
which  is  so  much  more  important  an  institution  than  Christian- 
ity that  it  will  not  be  considered  for  a  moment. 


REVIVALS  AND  REFORMS. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REFORM. 

It  is  the  habit  of  men  who  regard  themselves  as  "radicals," 
in  matters  relating  to  reform,  to  look  upon  the  Christian  and 
the  Christian  church  as  "conservative,"  when,  in  truth,  the 
Christian  is  the  only  reformer  in  the  world  who  can  lay  a 
sound  claim  to  radicalism.  The  church  has  lived  for  eighteen 
hundred  years,  and  will  live  until  the  end  of  time,  because  it 
holds  the  only  radical  system  of  reform  in  existence,  if  for  no 
other  reason.  The  greatness  of  the  founder  of  Christianity  is 
conspicuously  shown  in  his  passing  by  social  institutions  as  of 
minor  and  inconsiderable  importance,  and  fastening  his  claims 
upon  the  individual.  The  reform  of  personal  character  was 
his  one  aim.  With  him,  the  man  was  great  and  the  insti- 
tution small.  There  was  but  one  way  with  him  for  making 
a  good  society,  and  that  was  by  the  purification  of  its  individual 
materials.  There  can  be  nothing  more  radical  than  this;  and 
there  never  was  anything — there  never  will  be  'anything — to 
take  the  place  of  it.  It  is  most  interesting  and  instructive  to 
notice  how,  one  by  one,  every  system  of  reform  that  has  at- 
tempted to  "cut  under"  Christianity  has  died  out,  leaving  it  a 
permanent  possessor  of  the  field.  The  reason  is  that  Christian- 
ity is  radical.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  getting  below  it. 
It  is  at  the  root  of  all  reform,  because  it  deals  with  men  indi- 
vidually. 


!  5  4  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

We  suppose  that  it  is  a  matter  of  great  wonder  to  some  of 
ourskeptical  scientists  that  Christianity  can  live  for  a  day.  To 
them  it  is  all  a  fable,  and  they  look  with  either  contempt  or 
pity  upon  those  who  give  it  their  faith  and  their  devoted  sup- 
port. If  they  had  only  a  little  of  the  philosophy  of  which  they 
believe  themselves  to  possess  a  great  deal,  they  would  see  that 
no  system  of  religion  can  die  which  holds  within  itself  the  only 
philosophical  basis  of  reform.  A  system  of  religion  which  car- 
ries motives  within  it  for  the  translation  of  bad  or  imperfect 
character  into  a  form  and  quality  as  divine  as  anything  we  can 
conceive,  and  which  relies  upon  this  translation  for  the  im- 
provement of  social  and  political  institutions,  is  a  system  which 
bears  its  credentials  of  authority,  graven  upon  the  palms  of  its 
hands.  There  can  be  nothing  better.  Nothing  can  take  the 
place  of  it.  Until  all  sorts  of  reformers  are  personally  reformed 
by  it,  they  are  only  pretenders  or  mountebanks.  They  are  all 
at  work  upon  the  surface,  dealing  with  matters  that  are  not 
radical. 

It  is  most  interesting  and  instructive,  we  repeat,  to  observe 
how  all  the  patent  methods  that  have  been  adopted  outside  of, 
or  in  opposition  to,  Christianity,  for  the  reformation  of  society, 
have,  one  after  another,  gone  to  the  wall,  or  gone  to  the  dogs. 
A  dream,  and  a  few  futile  or  disastrous  experiments,  are  all 
that  ever  comes  of  them.  Societies,  communities,  organiza- 
tions, melt  away  and  are  lost ;  and  all  that  remains  of  them  is 
their  history.  Yet  the  men  who  originated  them  fancied  that 
they  were  radicals,  while  they  never  touched  the  roots  either 
of  human  nature  or  human  society.  The  most  intelligent  of 
those  who  abjure  Christianity  have  seen  all  this,  and  have  been 
wise  enough  not  to  undertake  to  put  anything  in  its  place. 
They  content  themselves  with  their  negations,  and  leave  the 
race  to  flounder  along  as  it  will. 


REVIVALS  AND  REFORMS. 


155 


We  suppose  it  is  a  matter  of  wonder  to  such  men  as  these 
that  Mr.  Moody  and  Mr.  Sankey  can  obtain  such  a  following 
as  they  do.  They  undoubtedly  attribute  it  to  superstition  and 
ignorance,  but  these  reformers  are  simply  eminent  radicals 
after  the  Christian  pattern,  who  deal  with  the  motives  and 
means  furnished  them  by  the  one  great  radical  reformer  of  the 
world — Jesus  Christ  himself.  They  are  at  work  at  the  basis 
of  things.  To  them,  politics  are  nothing,  denominations  are 
nothing,  organizations  are  nothing,  or  entirely  subordinate. 
Individual  reform  is  everything.  After  this,  organizations  will 
take  care  of  themselves.  No  good  society  can  possibly  be 
made  out  of  bad  materials,  and  when  the  materials  are  made 
good,  the  society  takes  a  good  form  naturally,  as  a  pure  salt 
makes  its  perfect  crystal  without  superintendence.  They  are 
proving,  day  by  day,  what  all  Christian  reformers  have  been 
proving  for  eighteen  centuries,  viz. :  that  Christian  reform,  as  it 
relates  to  individual  life  and  character,  possesses  the  only 
sound  philosophical  basis  that  can  be  found  among  reforms. 
Christian  reform,  with  all  its  motives  and  methods,  is  found  to 
be  just  as  vital  to-day  as  it  ever  was.  It  is  the  same  yester- 
day, to-day,  and  forever.  There  are  a  great  many  dogmas  of 
the  church  whose  truth,  or  whose  importance,  even  if  true,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  prove;  but  the  great  truths,  that  hu- 
manity is  degraded,  and  can  only  be  elevated  and  purified  by 
the  elevation  and  purification  of  its  individual  constituents,  are 
evident  to  the  simplest  mind.  Men  know  that  they  are  bad, 
and  ought  to  be  better;  and  a  motive, — or  a  series  of  motives 
to  reformation,  addressed  directly  to  this  consciousness, — is  not 
long  in  achieving  results.  The  radicalism  of  Christianity 
holds  the  secret  of  revivals,  of  the  stability  of  the  church,  of 
the  growth  and  improvement  of  Christian  communities.  All 
things  that  are  true  are  divine.  There  can  be  no  one  thing 


I  s  6 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


that  is  more  divinely  true  than  any  other  thing  that  is  true. 
Christianity  is  divine,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  holds 
and  monopolizes  the  only  radical  and  philosophical  basis  of 
reform.  The  criticisms  of  all  those  who  ignore  these  facts  are 
necessarily  shallow  and  unworthy  of  consideration  —  just  as 
shallow  and  just  as  worthless,  as  the  dogmatism  inside  the 
church  which  attributes  the  power  of  Christianity  to  those 
things  which  are  not  sources  of  power  at  all.  Christianity 
must  live  and  triumph  as  a  system  of  reform,  because  it  goes 
to  the  roots  of  things,  and,  because,  by  so  doing,  it  proves 
itself  to  be  divinely  and  eternally  true. 

MR.  MOODY  AND  HIS  WORK. 

We  suppose  there  is  no  question  that  Mr.  Moody  has  done 
a  marvelous  work,  both  in  Great  Britain  and  America.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  popular  curiosity  to  know  exactly  what  it 
was,  and  how  it  was  done.  The  remarkable  thing  about  it 
seems  to  be  that  there  was  no  remarkable  thing  about  it,  save 
in  its  results.  Not  a  revivalist,  but  an  evangelist  ;  not  a  stirrer 
up  of  excitement,  but  a  calm  preacher  of  Jesus  Christ,  Mr. 
Moody  has  talked  in  his  earnest,  homely  way  upon  those 
truths  which  he  deemed  essential  to  spiritual  welfare,  in  this 
world  and  the  next.  Men  went  to  hear  him  not  only  by 
thousands,  but  by  tens  of  thousands.  Not  only  the  common 
people  "heard  him  gladly,"  but  very  uncommon  people  —  Prime 
Ministers,  Earls,  Duchesses,  Members  of  Parliament,  Mem- 
bers of  Congress,  Doctors  of  the  Law,  Doctors  of  Divinity,  and 
clergymen  by  the  hundred.  All  testified  to  the  power  of  his 
preaching.  The  doubters  were  convinced,  the  wicked  were 
converted,  weary  teachers  of  religion  were  filled  with  fresh 
courage  and  hopefulness,  and  there  was  a  great  turning  of 
thoughts  and  hearts  Godward.  Mr.  Tyndall  and  Mr.  Huxley 


REVIVALS  A ND  REFORMS.  157 

and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  were  not  very  much  in  men's  minds 
while  Mr.  Moody  was  around.  One  thing  was  very  certain, 
viz. :  the  people  wanted  something  that  Mr.  Moody  had  to 
bestow,  and  they  "  went  for  it." 

Mr.  Moody  and  Mr.  Sankey  think  that  the  work  they  have 
seemed  to  do  has  not  been  done  by  them  at  all,  but  by  the 
Spirit  of  the  Almighty.  It  looks  like  it,  we  confess.  Either 
the  truth  which  Mr.  Moody  preached  was  wonderfully  needed, 
and  wonderfully  adapted  to  human  want ;  either  the  multitudes 
were  starving  for  the  bread  of  their  souls'  life,  or  there  was 
some  force  above  Mr.  Moody's  modest  means  which  must  be 
held  accountable  for  the  stupendous  results.  This  is  a  scientific 
age.  The  great  men  of  science  now  engaged  in  uprooting 
the  popular  faith  in  Christianity  have  a  new  problem  in 
science.  Was  there  enough  in  Mr.  Moody's  eloquence,  or 
personal  influence,  to  account  for  the  effect  produced  ?  Would 
it  not  be  very  unscientific  to  regard  these  little  means  sufficient 
to  account  for  these  results  ?  It  is  a  fair  question,  and  it  de- 
serves a  candid  answer.  Until  we  get  this  answer,  people  who 
have  nothing  but  common  sense  to  guide  them  must  repose 
upon  the  conviction  that  the  power  which  Mr.  Moody  seemed 
to  wield  was  in  the  truth  he  promulgated,  or  that  it  emanated 
from  a  source  which  he  recognized  as  the  Spirit  of  God. 

But  not  alone  have  the  scientists  received  a  lesson  from  the 
wonderful  results  of  Mr.  Moody's  simple  preaching.  The 
Christian  ministry,  all  over  the  world,  have  found  instruction 
in  it  which  ought  to  last  them  during  their  life-time.  As  nearly 
as  we  can  ascertain,  Mr.  Moody  has  not  paid  very  much  atten- 
tion to  the  preaching  of  Judaism — involving  a  theism  and  a 
system  of  doctrine  which  Christ  came  to  set  aside  and  super- 
sede. Paul  resolved  that  he  wouldn't  know  anything  but 
Jesus  Christ,  and  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  Mr.  Moody 


!  sg  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

doesn't  know  anything  but  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  a  fortunate  ig- 
norance for  him,  and  for  the  world.  Our  preachers,  as  a  rule, 
know  so  many  things  besides  the  Master;  they  have  wrought 
up  such  a  complicated  scheme,  based  on  a  thousand  other 
things  besides  Jesus  Christ,  that  they  confess  they  don't  under- 
stand it  themselves.  The  man  who  offered  a  pair  of  skates  to 
the  boy  who  would  learn  the  catechism,  and  a  four-story  house, 
with  a  brown  stone  front,  if  he  could  understand  it,  risked 
nothing  beyond  the  fancy  hardware ;  and  yet  we  are  assured 
that  the  path  of  life  is  so  plain,  that  a  wayfaring  man,  though 
a  fool,  need  not  err  therein.  And,  considering  the  fact  that 
Christ  is  the  veritable  "  Word  of  God" — that  he  is,  in  himself 
alone,  "  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life,"  and  considering  also 
the  use  that  has  been  made  of  the  Bible  in  complicating  and 
loading  down  his  simple  religion  with  the  theological  inven- 
tions of  men,  it  may  legitimately  be  questioned  whether  the 
progress  of  Christianity  has  not  been  hindered  by  our  posses- 
sion of  all  the  sacred  books  outside  of  the  evangelical  his- 
tories. 

At  any  rate,  we  see  what  has  come  to  Mr.  Moody  from 
preaching  without  much  learning,  without  much  theology,  and 
without  much  complicated  machinery,  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus  Christ.  A  salvation  and  a  cure  he  has  somehow  and 
somewhere  found  in  the  life,  death,  and  teachings  of  this  won- 
derful historical  personage.  For  the  simple  story  of  this  per- 
sonage, he  has  found  more  listeners  than  could  count  his 
words — attentive,  breathless,  hungry,  thirsty,  believing.  They 
have  flocked  to  the  refuge  he  has  opened  for  them  like  doves 
to  their  windows.  He  has  helped  to  start  tens  of  thousands 
in  the  true  way  of  life.  He  has  done  well  not  to  be  proud  of 
his  work.  He  has  done  well  to  refuse  the  wealth  ready  to  be 
bestowed  upon  him.  In  this,  he  has  exemplified  the  religion 


REVIVALS  AND  REFORMS.  !S9 

of  his  Master,  and  shown  a  just  appreciation  of  the  real 
sources  of  the  power  which  he  has  been  enabled  to  exert. 

Against  such  demonstrations  of  the  power  of  Christ  and 
Christianity  as  are  afforded  by  the  London  and  New  York 
meetings,  infidelity  can  make  no  headway.  They  prove  that 
man  wants  religion,  and  that  when  he  finds  what  he  wants,  in 
its  purity  and  simplicity,  he  will  get  it.  They  prove  that  Chris- 
tianity only  needs  to  be  preached  in  purity  and  simplicity  to 
win  the  triumphs  for  which  the  Church  has  looked  and  prayed 
so  long.  The  cure  for  the  moral  evils  of  the  world  is  just  as 
demonstrably  in  the  Christian  religion  as  the  elements  of  veg- 
etable life  are  in  the  soil.  Penitence,  forgiveness,  reformation, 
the  substitution  of  love  for  selfishness  as  the  governing  principle 
of  life,  piety  toward  God,  and  good-will  to  men — in  short,  the 
adoption  of  'Christ  as  Saviour,  King,  exemplar,  teacher — this  is 
Christianity — the  whole  of  it.  Christianity  reveals  the  father- 
hood of  God,  and  men  want  a  father.  Christianity  reforms 
society  and  government  by  reforming  their  constituents,  and 
there  is  not  a  moral  evil  from  which  the  world  suffers  that  is  not 
demonstrably  curable  by  it.  If  there  is  any  man  who  can- 
not find  its  divinity  and  its  authority  in  this  fact,  we  pity  his 
blindness. 

We  believe  that  Mr.  Moody  has  done  a  great  deal  of  good 
directly  to  those  who  have  come  to  him  for  impulse  and  in- 
struction; but  the  indirect  results  of  his  preaching,  upon  the 
Christian  teachers  of  the  world,  ought  to  multiply  his  influence 
a  hundred  fold.  The  simple,  vital  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  Christ, 
and  not  as  it  is  in  Moses,  or  Daniel,  or  Jeremiah,  or  anybody 
else,  for  that  matter,  is  what  the  world  wants.  And  when  the 
Christian  world  gets  down  to  that,  it  will  get  so  near  together 
that  it  will  be  ashamed  of,  and  laugh  at,  its  own  divisions.  It 
is  nonsense  to  suppose  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  any  more  will- 


!6o   •  EVERY  DAY  TOPICS. 

ing  to  bless  Mr.  Moody's  work  than  that  of  any  other  man, 
provided  the  work  done  is  the  same.  The  fact  that  his  work 
has  prospered  more  than  that  of  others,  proves  simply  that  it  is 
better, — that  Christianity  is  preached  more  purely  by  him  than 
by  others.  It  becomes  religious  teachers,  then,  to  find  out 
what  he  does  preach,  and  how  he  preaches  it. 

REVIVALS  AND  EVANGELISTS. 

Revivals  seem  to  have  become  a  part  of  the  established 
policy  of  nearly  the  whole  Christian  Church.  The  Catholics 
have  their  "Missions,"  the  Episcopalians  have  their  regular 
special  seasons  of  religious  devotion  and  effort,  while  the  other 
forms  of  Protestantism  look  to  revivals,  occasionally  appearing, 
as  the  times  of  general  awakening  and  general  in-gathering. 
Regular  church  life,  family  culture,  Sunday-schools  and  even 
regular  Mission  work  seem  quite  insufficient  for  aggressive 
purposes  upon  the  world.  We  do  not  propose  to  question  this 
policy,  though  the  time  will  doubtless  come,  in  the  progress  of 
Christianity,  when  it  will  be  forgotten.  We  have  only  to  say  a 
word  in  regard  to  the  association  of  evangelists  with  revivals, 
and  the  two  principal  modes  of  their  operation.  With  one,  we 
have  very  little  sympathy ;  with  the  other,  a  great  deal. 

There  is  a  class  of  evangelists  who  go  from  church  to  church, 
of  whom  most  clergymen  are  afraid;  and  their  fears  are  thor- 
oughly well  grounded.  There  arises,  we  will  say,  a  strong 
religious  interest  in  a  church.  Everything  seems  favorable  to 
what  is  called  a  "revival."  Some  well-meaning  member  thinks 
that  if  Mr.  Bedlow  could  only  come  and  help  the  fatigued 
pastor,  wonderful  results  would  follow.  The  pastor  does  not 
wish  to  stand  in  the  way — is  suspicious  that  he  has  unworthy 
prejudices  against  Mr.  Bedlow — tries  to  overcome  them,  and 
Mr.  Bedlow  appears.  But  Mr.  Bedlow  utterly  ignores  the 


REVIVALS  AND  REFORMS.  l^J 

condition  of  the  church,  and,  instead  of  sensitively  apprehend- 
ing it  and  adapting  himself  to  the  line  of  influences  already  in 
progress,  arrests  everything  by  an  attempt  to  start  anew,  and 
carry  on  operations  by  his  own  patent  method.  The  first 
movement  is  to  get  the  pastor  and  the  pastor's  wife  and  all  the 
prominent  members  upon  their  knees,  in  a  confession  that  they 
have  been  all  wrong — miserably  unfaithful  to  their  duties  and 
their  trust.  This  is  the  first  step,  and,  of  course,  it  establishes 
Mr.  Bedlow  in  the  supreme  position,  which  is  precisely  what 
he  deems  essential.  The  methods  and  controlling  influences 
of  the  church  are  uprooted,  and,  for  the  time,  Mr.  Bedlow  has 
everything  his  own  way.  Some  are  disgusted,  some  are  dis- 
heartened, a  great  many  are  excited,  and  the  good  results, 
whatever  they  may  seem  to  be,  are  ephemeral.  There  inevi- 
tably follows  a  reaction,  and  in  a  year  the-  church  acknowledges 
to  itself  that  it  is  left  in  a  worse  condition  than  that  in  which 
Mr.  Bedlow  found  it.  The  minister  has  been  shaken  from  his 
poise,  the  church  is  dead,  and,  whatever  happens,  Mr.  Bedlow, 
still  going  through  his  process  elsewhere,  will  not  be  invited 
there  again. 

We  will  deny  nothing  to  the  motives  of  these  itinerants. 
They  seem  to  thrive  personally  and  financially.  They  un- 
doubtedly do  good  under  peculiar  circumstances,  but,  that  they 
are  dangerous  men  we  do  not  question.  If  neighboring  clergy- 
men, in  a  brotherly  way,  were  to  come  to  the  help  of  one 
seriously  overworked,  and  enter  into  his  spirit  and  his  method 
of  labor,  it  would  be  a  great  deal  better  than  to  bring  in  a 
foreign  power  that  will  work  by  its  own  methods  or  not  work 
at  all, — that  will  rule  or  do  nothing.  If  the  writer  has  seemed 
to  be  against  revivals,  he  has  only  been  against  revivals  of  this 
sort,  initiated  and  carried  on  by  these  men.  We  question  very 
sincerely  whether  they  have  not  done  more  harm  to  the  Church 


!  6  2  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

than  they  have  done  good.  That  they  have  injured  many 
churches  very  seriously  there  can  be  no  question.  The  mere 
idea  that  the  coming  of  Mr.  Bedlow  into  a  church  will  bring  a 
revival  which  would  be  denied  to  a  conscientious,  devoted 
pastor  and  people,  is  enough,  of  itself,  to  shake  the  popular 
faith  in  Christianity  and  its  divine  and  gracious  founder.  Even 
if  it  fails  to  do  this,  it  may  well  shake  the  popular  faith  in  the 
character  of  the  revival  and  its  results. 

There  is  another  class  of  evangelists  who  work  in  a  very 
different  way.  It  is  very  small  at  present,  but  it  is  destined  to 
grow  larger.  It  works,  not  inside  of  churches,  but  outside  of 
them.  It  has  a  mission,  not  to  the  churches,  but  to  the  people 
who  are  outside  of  them.  It  works  in  public  halls  with  no 
sectarian  ideas  to  push,  no  party  to  build  up,  no  special  church 
to  benefit.  It  aims  at  a  popular  awakening,  and,  when  it  gains 
a  man,  it  sends  him  to  the  church  of  his  choice,  to  be  educated 
in  Christian  living.  To  this  class  belong  Messrs.  Moody  and 
Sankey,  whose  efforts  we  have  approved  from  the  first,  be- 
cause they  have  done  their  work  in  this  way.  That  it  is  a 
better  work  than  the  other  class  of  evangelists  have  ever  done, 
we  have  the  evidence  on  every  hand.  The  churches  are  all 
quickened  by  it  to  go  on  with  their  own  work  in  their  own 
way.  There  is  no  usurpation  of  pastoral  authority  and  influ- 
ence. There  is  no  interference  with  methods  that  have  had  a 
natural  growth  and  development  out  of  the  individualities  of 
the  membership,  and  out  of  the  individual  circumstances  of 
each  church. 

There  is  another  good  result  which  grows  naturally  out  of 
the  labors  of  this  class  of  men.  It  brings  all  the  churches 
together  upon  common  ground.  The  Presbyterian,  the  Bap- 
tist, the  Methodist,  the  Episcopalian,  sit  on  the  same  platform, 
and,  together,  learn  that,  after  all,  the  beginning  and  the 


REVIVALS  AND  REFORMS.  ^3 

essence  of  a  Christian  life  and  character  are  the  same  in  every 
church.  They  learn  toleration  for  one  another.  More  than 
this:  they  learn  friendliness  and  love  for  one  another.  They 
light  their  torches  at  a  common  fire,  and  kindle  the  flame  upon 
their  own  separate  altars  in  a  common  sympathy.  They  all 
feel  that  the  evangelist  has  to  do  mainly  with  the  beginnings  of 
Christian  life,  and  that  it  is  their  work  to  gather  in  and  perfect 
the  results.  Hence,  all  have  an  interest  in  that  work  and  help 
it  on  with  united  heart  and  voice.  The  more  of  this  kind  of 
evangelism  we. have,  the  better. 


CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE. 

THE  AVERAGE  PRAYER-MEETING. 

The  prayer-meeting  constitutes  so  important  a  part  of  the 
Christian  social  life  of  this  country,  and  is  so  much  a  thing  of 
the  people  that  it  is  legitimately  a  topic  for  the  examination 
and  discussion  of  laymen.  We  approach  the  subject  with 
abundant  reverence  for  the  time-honored  estimate  of  its  use- 
fulness, and  only  with  a  wish  for  the  advancement  of  its  effi- 
ciency as  an  agency  in  spiritual  culture.  That  it  is  in  any 
respect  the  boon  that  it  should  be,  to  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands who  attend  upon  and  participate  in  its  exercises,  no  one 
pretends.  That  it  is  the  lamest  and  most  nearly  impotent 
of  any  of  the  agencies  employed  by  the  church,  in  perhaps 
two  cases  out  of  every  three,  is  evident  to  all.  Let  us  see 
if  we  can  present  a  fair  picture  of  the  average  prayer-meeting. 

In  a  church  of,  say  two  hundred  and  fifty  members,  there  is 
an  average  attendance  of  fifty  persons.  These  are  made  up, 
so  far  as  the  men  are  concerned,  of  the  principal  church  offi- 
cials— the  deacons,  elders,  etc.  The  remainder  are  women — 
the  best  women  of  the  church,  and  such  of  their  families  as 
they  can  induce  to  accompany  them.  The  clergyman,  over- 
worked, and  discouraged  by  the  small  nurriber  in  attendance, 
is  there  to  lead.  He  gives  out  his  hymn,  prays,  reads  the 
Scriptures,  and,  with  a  few  remarks,  "  throws  open  the  meet- 


CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE.  l^g> 

ing"  to  the  laymen  for  prayer  or  exhortation.  There  is  a  long 
period  of  silence.  The  deacons,  who  suspect  that  their  voices 
have  been  heard  too  often,  or  that  they  may  be  in  the  way  of 
others,  remain  silent.  At  last,  either  one  of  them  is  called 
upon  by  the  pastor,  or  some  poor  man,  under  the  spur  of  a 
sense  of  duty,  rises  and  utters,  as  well  as  he  can,  the  words  of 
a  prayer.  Everybody  sees  that  he  is  in  a  struggle,  and  that 
he  is  so  little  at  home  that  he  is  only  anxious  to  get  through 
without  breaking  down.  The  audience  is,  of  course,  sympa- 
thetic, and,  instead  of  being  led  in  prayer,  become  as  anxious 
for  him  as  he  is  for  himself.  And  so,  with  long  patches  of  em- 
barrassing and  painful  silence,  interspersed  with  dreary  plati- 
tudes of  prayer  and  speech,  unrefreshing  and  lacking  spon- 
taneity to  a  sad  degree,  the  meeting  goes  on  to  the  end,  which 
comes  when  the  chapel  clock  shows  that  an  hour  has  been 
spent  in  the  service.  To  suppose  that  any  great  good  comes 
from  the  spending  of  an  hour  in  this  way,  is  to  offer  an  insult 
to  common  sense. 

It  would  be  instructive,  if  the  facts  could  be  ascertained,  to 
know  how  many  of  those  who  attend  the  average  prayer- 
meeting  do  so  because  they  truly  delight  in  it,  how  many 
because  they  wish  to  stand  by  and  encourage  their  pastor,  and 
how  many  because  they  think  it  is,  or  may  be,  their  duty.  It 
would  also  be  instructive,  if  the  facts  could  be  ascertained,  to 
know  how  many  men  are  kept  away  by  the  fear  of  being 
called  upon  to  engage  actively  in  the  exercises,  and  how  many 
remain  at  home  because  they  have  learned  by  experience  that 
the  average  prayer-meeting  is  a  dreary  place  to  weary  men — 
one  which  bores  without  benefiting  them.  We  fear  that,  if  the 
facts  were  known  as  they  relate  to  these  two  points,  the  aver- 
age prayer-meeting  would  find  itself  in  very  sorry  standing. 
When  men  go  to  a  religious  meeting,  of  any  sort,  they  go  to 


! 66  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

be  reinforced,  or  refreshed,  or  instructed.  How  much  of  any 
one  of  these  objects  can  be  realized  in  such  a  meeting  as  we 
have  described?  How  much  of  the  still  higher  object  of 
spontaneous,  joyous  worship  can  be  secured,  by  listening  to 
the  painful  blundering  of  some  pious  and  conscientious  lay- 
man ?  Is  it  not  the  truth  that  the  average  prayer-meeting  is 
a  sad  mockery  of  both  God  and  man  ? 

Can  it  be  possible  that  the  Almighty  Father  of  us  all  is 
pleased  with  an  offering  so  little  spontaneous,  so  far  from  joy- 
ous, so  painful  in  its  exercises,  and  so  unprofitable  in  its  coun- 
sels as  this  ?  If,  once  a  week,  a  whole  church  would  come 
together  joyfully,  and  sing  their  songs,  and  pray  their  prayers, 
and  speak  their  thoughts,  and  commune  with  one  another  on 
the  great  topic  which  absorbs  them,  that  would  be  a  meeting 
worth  having.  But  how  would  such  a  meeting  compare  with 
the  dead  drag  of  the  average  prayer-meeting  ?  It  would 
compare  as  life  compares  with  death,  as  beauty  with  deformity. 
So  utterly  valueless,  to  all  human  apprehension,  are  the  prayer- 
meetings  carried  on  by  some  churches,  that  it  may  well  be 
questioned  whether  they  are  not  rather  a  detriment  than  an 
advantage,  a  harm  rather  than  a  help,  to  the  regular  work  of 
the  pastors,  and  the  spiritual  prosperity  of  those  whom  they 
lead  and  teach. 

There  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  layman  in  this  con- 
nection, which  will  leave  his  piety  unimpugned.  In  the  first 
place  he  labors  at  an  absorbing  employment.  He  goes  to  the 
meeting  utterly  weary,  and  without  the  slightest  preparation 
of  heart  or  brain  for  any  active  participation  in  its  exercises. 
He  needs  help,  and  does  not  feel  capable  of  offering  any. 
He  is  empty  of  his  vitality,  and  needs  to  be  refreshed,  and 
diverted  from  the  currents  of  thought  in  which  his  trade  or 
profession  holds  him.  Again,  as  a  rule,  he  is  unused  to  public 


CHRIS  7  °1A  N  PR  A  C  TICE. 


167 


speech  of  any  sort.  It  is  impossible  for  him  to  lose  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  is  speaking ;  and,  becoming  critical  upon 
himself,  his  spontaneity,  and  all  the  good  that  comes  of  it,  are 
lost.  He  sinks  to  his  seat  at  last,  humbled  into  the  dust  in  the 
conviction  that  he  has  been  engaged  in  a  performance,  in 
regard  to  whose  success  or  failure  he  feels  either  gratification 
or  mortified  pride.  It  does  him  no  good,  and  what  is  thus 
fruitless  to  him  is,  by  force  of  its  nature,  fruitless  of  good  to 
others. 

Shall  the  prayer-meeting  be  dropped  when  it  ceases  hope- 
lessly to  be  the  vivifying,  spontaneous  agency  of  worship  and 
communion  that  it  ought  to  be  ?  Can  any  change  be  made  in 
its  methods  that  will  work  a  reformation  ?  Can  it  be  modified 
so  as  to  avoid  the  evils  we  have  indicated?  These  are  ques- 
tions that  we  cannot  answer,  but  it  is  not  hard  to  see  that  a 
meeting  conducted  entirely  by  the  pastor  is  a  thousand  times 
better  than  a  poor  prayer-meeting,  and  that,  if  a  prayer-meet- 
ing must  be  had,  it  is  better  to  conduct  it  after  some  liturgical 
form  than  to  trust  to  the  blind  and  blinding  leadings  of  igno- 
rant and  half  distracted  men.  Spontaneous  lay  prayers  in 
public  are  very  nice  in  theory,  but  in  practice,  in  the  main,  they 
are  apples  that  break  into  ashes  on  the  tongue.  The  opinion 
seems  reasonable  to  us  that  any  pastor,  or  body  of  pastors, 
who  will  present  to  the  American  churches  a  liturgy  for  social 
use,  so  genial,  so  hearty,  so  full  of  the  detail  of  common  wants, 
and  so  appreciative  of  the  aspirations  of  the  people,  as  to  be 
the  best  possible  expression  of  social  worship  and  common 
petitions,  will  do  more  to  lift  the  average  prayer-meeting  out  of 
decrepitude,  not  to  say  disgrace,  than  can  be  done  by  any 
other  means.  If  non- Episcopal  Protestants  wish  to  learn  why 
't  is  that  the  Episcopal  Church  makes  converts  with  such  com- 
parative ease,  they  need  not  go  outside  of  our  suggestion  for 
their  information. 


!  68  £  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

SPEAKING  DISRESPECTFULLY  OF  THE  EQUATOR. 

We  heard  a  sermon  recently  on  the  subject  of  irrational  rever- 
ence. It  was  suggestive  and  stimulating.  It  recalled  to  us 
the  fact  that  one  of  the  principal  objects  of  American  reverence 
is  the  Devil.  There  are  multitudes  who  are  shocked  to  hear 
his  name  mentioned  lightly,  and  who  esteem  such  mention 
profanity.  We  believe  we  do  no  injustice  to  millions  of  Amer- 
ican people  in  saying  that  they  have  a  genuine  reverence  for 
the  being  whom  they  believe  to  be  the  grand  source  and  su- 
preme impersonation  of  all  evil.  Of  course  this  respectful 
feeling  has  grown  out  of  the  association  of  this  being  with 
religion,  and  is  strong  just  in  the  proportion  that  the  religion  is 
irrational  or  superstitious.  Now  we  confess  to  a  lack  of  respect 
for  the  being  who  played  our  great  grandmother  a  scurvy  trick 
in  the  garden,  and  has  always  been  the  enemy  of  the  human 
race;  and  we  have  persistently  endeavored  to  bring  him  into 
contempt.  It  is  harmful  to  the  soul  to  entertain  reverence  foi 
any  being,  real  or  imaginary,  who  is  recognized  to  be  wholly 
bad.  That  attitude  of  the  man  which  defies,  rather  than  depre- 
cates, is  a  healthy  one.  If  we  have  an  incorrigible  devil,  who 
is  not  fit  to  live  in  the  society  of  pure  beings,  let's  hate  him, 
and  do  what  we  can  to  ruin  his  influence.  Let  us,  at  least,  do 
away  with  all  irrational  reverence  for  him  and  his  name. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  irrational  reverence  for  the  Bible. 
There  are  men  who  carry  a  Bible  with  them  wherever  they  go, 
as  a  sort  of  protection  to  them.  There  are  men  who  read  it 
daily,  not  because  they  are  truth-seekers,  but  because  they  are 
favor-seekers.  To  read  it  is  a  part  of  their  duty.  To  neglect 
to  read  it  would  be  to  court  adversity.  There  are  men  who 
open  it  at  random  to  see  what  special  message  God  has  for 
them  through  the  ministry  of  chance  or  miracle.  There  are 
men  who  hold  it  as  a  sort  of  fetich,  and  bear  it  about  with 


CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE.  Z69 

them  as  if  it  were  an  idol.  There  are  men  who  see  God  in  it, 
and  see  Him  nowhere  else.  The  wonderful  words  printed 
upon  the  starry  heavens;  the  music  of  the  ministry  that  comes 
to  them  in  winds  and  waves  and  the  songs  of  birds;  the  mul- 
tiplied forms  of  beauty  that  smile  upon  them  from  streams  and 
llowers,  and  lakes  and  landscapes;  the  great  scheme  of  benefi- 
cent service  by  which  they  receive  their  daily  bread  and  their 
clothing  and  shelter, — all  these  are  unobserved,  or  fail  to  be 
recognized  as  divine.  In  short,  there  is  to  them  no  expression 
of  God  except  what  they  find  in  a  book.  And  this  book  is  so 
sacred  that  even  the  form  of  language  into  which  it  has  been 
imperfectly  translated  is  sacred.  They  would  not  have  a  word 
changed.  They  would  frown  upon  any  attempt  to  examine 
critically  into  the  sources  of  the  book,  forgetting  that  they  are 
rational  beings,  and  that  one  of  the  uses  of  their  rational  facul- 
ties is  to  know  whereof  they  affirm,  and  to  give  a  reason  for 
the  hope  and  faith  that  are  in  them.  It  is  precisely  the  same 
irrational  reverence  that  the  Catholic  has  for  his  church  and 
his  priest. 

The  irrational  reverence  for  things  that  are  old  is  standing 
all  the  time  in  the  path  of  progress.  Old  forms  that  are  out- 
lived, old  habits  that  new  circumstances  have  outlawed,  old 
creeds  which  cannot  possibly  contain  the  present  life  and 
thought  and  opinion,  old  ideas  whose  vitality  has  long  been 
expended — these  are  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way  of  the  world, 
yet  they  are  cherished  and  adhered  to  with  a  reverential  ten- 
derness that  is  due  only  to  God.  A  worn  out  creed  is  good 
for  nothing  but  historical  purposes,  and,  when  those  are  an- 
swered, it  ought  to  go  into  the  rag-bag.  Forgetting  those 
things  which  are  behind,  the  wise  man  will  constantly  reach 
toward  those  that  are  before.  The  past  is  small;  the  future  is 
large.  We  travel  toward  the  dawn,  and  every  man  who  rev- 


1 7 o  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

erences  the  past,  simply  because  it  is  the  past,  worships  toward 
the  setting  sun,  and  will  find  himself  in  darkness  before  he  is 
aware.  Of  all  the  bondage  that  this  world  knows,  there  is 
none  so  chilling  or  so  killing  as  that  which  ties  us  to  the  past 
and  the  old.  We  wear  out  our  coats  and  drop  them;  we  wear 
out  our  creeds  and  hold  to  them,  glorying  in  our  tatters. 

There  is  even  an  irrational  reverence  for  the  Almighty 
Father  of  us  all.  We  can,  and  many  of  us  do,  place  Him  sd 
far  away  from  us  in  His  inaccessible  Majesty,  we  clothe  Him 
with  such  awful  attributes,  we  mingle  so  much  fear  with  our 
love,  that  we  lose  sight  entirely  of  our  filial  relation  to  .Him—- 
lose sight  entirely  of  the  tender,  loving,  sympathetic,  Fatherly 
Being,  whom  the  Master  has  revealed  to  us. 

In  the  sermon  to  which  we  have  alluded,  the  preacher 
quoted  Coleridge's  definition  of  reverence,  which  makes  it  a 
sentiment  formed  of  the  combination  of  love  and  fear.  We 
doubt  the  completeness  of  the  definition.  Certainly,  fear  has 
altogether  too  much  to  do  with  our  reverence,  but  if  perfect 
love  casteth  out  fear,  where  is  the  reverence  ?  That  is  an  irra- 
tional reverence  which  lies  prostrate  before  a  greatness  that 
it  cannot  comprehend,  and  forgets  the  goodness,  the  nature  of 
which,  at  least,  it  can  understand.  That  is  an  irrational  rever- 
ence which  always  looks  up,  and  never  around — which  is  al- 
ways in  awe,  and  never  in  delight — which  exceedingly  fears 
and  quakes,  and  has  no  tender  raptures — which  places  God  at 
a  distance,  and  fails  to  recognize  Him  in  the  thousand  forms 
that  appeal  to  our  sense  of  beauty,  and  the  thousand  small 
voices  that  speak  of  His  immediate  presence. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND   COLOR. 

No  American  of  ordinary  habits  of  observation  can  have 
failed  to  notice  that  in  those  sects  in  which  much  is  made  of 


CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE. 


171 


religious  emotion,  and  the  policy  of  powerful  public  appeals  tc 
feeling  is  pursued,  the  moralities  of  life  are  at  a  discount.  The 
same  fact  is  evident 'in  those  communities  where  dogma  and 
doctrine  form  the  staple  of  religious  teaching  and  religious  life. 
If  any  one  will  take  up  the  early  colonial  records  of  New  En- 
gland, he  will  be  surprised  and  shocked  at  the  amount  of  gross 
immorality  which  he  will  find  recorded  there.  Rigidity  of 
doctrine,  the  fulmination  of  the  most  terrific  punishments  in  the 
future  life,  the  passage  and  the  execution  of  the  most  searching 
and  definitive  laws  against  every  form  of  social  vice,  go 
hand  in  hand  with  every  form  of  vice.  There  was  adultery 
in  high  places  and  adultery  in  low.  Slander  held  high  car- 
nival. Common  scolds  were  almost  too  common  to  be  note- 
worthy. In  brief,  it  seems  that  a  religion  which  makes 
most  of  its  orthodoxy,  or  most  of  its  frames  and  emotions  of 
mind,  is  a  religion  most  divorced  from  morality.  A  man  who 
is  told  that  the  genuineness  of  his  religion  depends  mainly  upon 
the  orthodoxy  of  his  faith,  or  mainly  upon  the  raptures  of  his 
mental  experience,  is  either  partly  demoralized  by  his  reception 
of  the  statement,  or  specially  unfitted  to  meet  the  temptations 
of  his  life. 

The  negro  has  been  supposed  to  be  particularly  susceptible 
to  religious  influences.  He  is  as  fond  of  religion  as  he  is  of 
music;  and  we  fear  that  he  is  fond  of  it  in  very  much  the  same 
way.  It  is  no  slander  to  say  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  negro  is  purely  emotional,  and  that  a  large 
proportion  of  the  negroes  of  the  United  States  have  never 
thoroughly  associated,  either  in  their  theories  or  their  practical 
life,  religion  with  morality.  The  typical  negro  preacher  is  a 
"tonguey,"  loud-mouthed  man,  who  appeals  in  his  own  fashion 
to  the  crowd  before  him;  and  the  more  he  can  work  them  up 
to  great  excitement,  and  wild  and  noisy  demonstrations  of 


172 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


feeling,  the  better  he  is  pleased.  In  portions  of  the  South 
there  are  orgies  connected  with  the  religious  meetings  of  the 
negroes  which  are  too  absurd,  too  ridiculous,  too  heathenish, 
to  be  mentioned  by  one  who  reverently  remembers  in  whose 
sacred  name  they  are  performed.  The  yelling,  dancing, 
pounding  of  backs  and  insane  contortions  of  these  worshipers, 
are  the  same,  in  every  essential  respect,  as  they  would  be  in 
the  worship  of  a  fetich.  It  is  an  amusement — a  superstitious 
amusement — which  leaves  no  good  result  whatever,  and  does 
no  more  toward  nourishing  their  morality  than  the  music  of 
the  fiddle  to  which  they  dance  away  the  next  night  with  equal 
enthusiasm. 

In  a  recent  conversation  with  an  intelligent  clergyman,  who 
has  spent  many  years  at  the  South — though  a  Northern  man — 
we  heard  him  declare,  without  reserve,  that  he  did  not  know  a 
negro  in  the  whole  Southern  country  whom  he  regarded  as  thor- 
oughly trustworthy  in  matters  of  practical  morality.  Moreover, 
he  declared  that  the  worst  men,  as  a  class,  among  them,  were 
the  preachers  themselves.  By  these  latter  he  intended  to  indi- 
cate specially  the  self-appointed  preachers — ignorant,  but  bright 
men — who  had  secured  the  admiration  and  support  of  the 
masses.  We  asked  him  if  he  could  -not  except  from  his  very 
sweeping  condemnation  such  among  them  as  had  been  edu- 
cated at  the  North.  He  shook  his  head,  and  replied  that  he 
knew  some  among  those,  whose  superb  intellectual  culture 
would  grace  the  proudest  race  in  the  world,  but  never  knew 
one  of  them  whom  he  could  trust — particularly  with  his  neigh- 
bor's wife.  Now,  this  man  had  had  abundant  opportunities  of 
observation,  and  spoke  with  candor  and  conscience.  On  a  re- 
cent Sunday  the  writer  listened  to  the  out-door  preaching,  on 
Boston  Common,  of  one  of  the  finest  and  most  amiable-looking 
specimens  of  the  African  race  he  ever  saw,  and  what  was  he 


CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE. 


173 


preaching  about?  Not  purity  of  character  and  life,  not  love 
of  God  and  love  of  man,  not  duty  to  family  and  neighbor,  but 
the  theological  machinery  of  salvation.  It  was  the  natural  re- 
action from  the  emotional  religion  of  his  race,  but  it  had  no 
more  in  it  for  his  race,  in  its  moralities,  than  the  fiery  nonsense 
of  his  less  educated  brethren. 

Let  us  allow  something  for  mistakes  in  the  judgment  and  ob- 
servation of  the  man  whom  we  have  quoted,  and  still  we  shall 
have  sufficient  ground  for  the  declaration,  that  the  negro  in 
America,  as  a  rule,  holds  his  religion  independent  of  morality 
— as  something  which  either  takes  the  place  of  it,  or  has  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  it,  in  his  practical,  every-day  life. .  The 
fact  is  one  full  of  grave  suggestion,  not  only  as  it  regards  the 
future  welfare  of  the  race,  but  as  regards  the  country  in  whose 
political  fortunes  he  has  become  so  important  a  factor.  Much 
as  the  negro  needs  intellectual  education,  he  needs  moral  edu- 
cation more.  To  learn  to  read  will  do  little  for  him  if,  at  the 
same  time,  his  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  his  personal  purity,  his 
regard  for  the  rights  of  others,  his  conscience,  are  not  improved. 
If  he  cannot  more  fully  perceive  than  he  does  to-day  the  rela- 
tions of  Christianity  to  character  and  conduct,  his  Christianity 
will  rather  debase  than  elevate  him.  In  an  enormous  multi- 
tude of  instances,  all  over  the  South,  his  religious  rites  are  a 
travesty  of  Christian  observances,  and  a  libel  on  Christianity 
itself — a  travesty  and  a  libel  that  bring  religion  into  contempt 
among  thousands  of  observers. 

It  will  be  said  that  the  loose  notions  of  marriage  that  pre- 
vailed during  the  negro's  bondage,  and  the  thefts  in  which  he 
then  justified  himself,  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  his  present 
lack  of  moral  sense.  It  is  claimed  that  his  education  will  lift 
him  above  his  present  religious  teaching.  Granted,  and  still 
we  have  the  emotional  nature  of  the  negro  left,  and  his  natural 


j  7  4  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

tendency  to  emotional  Christianity.  It  is  one  of  the  great 
problems  with  which  we  have  to  deal — to  educate  the  con- 
science of  the  negro.  To  give  him  intelligence  without  this,  is 
to  make  him  more  dangerous  to  himself  and  us  than  he  is. 
Either  a  white  man  or  a  black  man,  with  rights  and  no  sense 
oi  righteousness,  is  a  dangerous  man.  His  political  power  is 
easily  bought  and  readily  sold  in  the  market,  he  is  led  with  aw- 
ful facility  into  unlawful  combinations,  he  becomes  a  social 
curse  in  every  community.  The  first  special  aim,  in  all  our  ef- 
forts to  raise  the  negro  from  his  degradation,  should  be  directed 
to  his  morals.  This  must  be  mainly  done  among  the  young, 
and  in  schools ;  and  any  teacher  who  is  not  competent  to  this 
work  has  no  calling  among  the  Africans,  and,  if  he  belongs  to 
the  North,  he  had  better  come  home. 

SUNDAY  IN  GREAT  CITIES. 

Of  the  importance  of  the  observance  of  Sunday,  in  the  vital 
economy  of  the  American  people,  there  is  no  longer  any 
doubt.  With  all  the  periodical  rest  it  brings  us,  we  still  find 
ourselves  overworked;  and  the  wrecks  of  paralysis  are  strewn 
around  us  on  every  hand.  Without  it,  we  should  find  ourselves 
despoiled  of  our1  most  efficient  and  reliable  safeguard  in  the 
dangers  which  beset  the  paths  of  business  enterprise.  As  a 
matter  of  economy,  therefore — as  a  conservator  of  health  and 
life  and  the  power  to  work — the  Sunday,  observed  strictly  as  a 
day  of  rest  from  secular  labor,  is  of  the  utmost  importance. 
We  cannot  afford  to-day,  and  we  shall  never  be  able  to  afford. 
to  give  it  up  to  labor,  either  in  city  or  country.  Experience 
has  settled  this  point,  and  yielded  upon  every  hand  its  testimo- 
nies to  the  wisdom  of  the  divine  institution.  As  a  measure  of 
social,  moral  and  physical  health — as  a  measure  of  industrial 
economy — the  ordination  of  a  day  of  periodical  rest  like  that 


CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE. 


'75 


which  Sunday  brings  us  would  come  legitimately  within  the 
scope  of  legislation.  If  we  had  no  Sunday,  it  would  be  die 
duty  of  the  State  to  ordain  one ;  and  as  we  have  it,  it  is 
equally  the  duty  of  the  State  to  protect  it,  and  confirm  to  the 
people  the  material  and  vital  benefits  which  it  is  so  well  calcu- 
lated to  secure. 

There  are  certain  other  facts  connected  with  the  observance 
of  Sunday  in  America  which  are  quite  as  well  established  as 
the  one  to  which  we  have  alluded,  the  most  prominent  of 
which  is,  that  the  high  morality  and  spirituality  of  any  commu- 
nity depends  uniformly  on  its  observance  of  Sunday.  We  do 
not  believe  there  is  a  deeply  religious  community  in  America, 
of  any  name,  that  does  not  observe  one  day  in  seven  as  a  day 
specially  devoted  to  religion.  The  earnest  Christian  or  Jew- 
ish workers  everywhere  are  Sabbath-keepers,  in  their  separate 
ways  and  days.  It  is  very  well  to  talk  about  an  "  every-day 
Christianity,"  and  better  to  possess  and  practice  it ;  but  there 
certainly  is  precious  little  of  it  where  Sunday  is  not  observed. 
The  religious  faculties,  sentiments,  and  susceptibilities,  under 
all  schemes  and  systems  of  religion,  are  the  subjects  of  culture, 
and  imperatively  need  the  periodical  food  and  stimulus  which 
come  with  Sunday  institutions  and  ministries.  The  prevalence 
and  permanence  of  a  pure  Christianity  in  this  country  depend 
mainly  on  what  can  be  done  for  them  on  Sunday.  If  the  ene- 
mies of  Christianity  could  wipe  it  out,  they  would  do  more  to 
destroy  the  power  of  the  religion  they  contemn  than  all  the 
Renans  and  Strausses  have  ever  done,  or  can  do.  They  under- 
stand this,  and  their  efforts  will  be  directed  to  this  end,  through 
every  specious  protest,  plea,  and  plan. 

The  most  religious  and  earnest  of  the  Catholic  clergy  of 
Europe  lament  the  fact  that  the  Sunday  of  their  church  and 
their  several  countries  is  a  day  of  amusement.  They  see,  and 


i76 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


they  publicly  acknowledge,  that  without  the  English  and 
American  Sunday  they  work  for  the  spiritual  benefit  of  their 
people  at  a  sad  disadvantage.  It  is  this  European  Sunday, 
which  we  are  told  is  to  come  to  America  at  last  through  her 
foreign  population.  We  hope  not.  We  would  like  to  ask 
those  who  would  rejoice  in  its  advent,  how  much  it  has  done 
for  the  countries  where  it  exists.  Go  to  Italy,  France,  Spain, 
Ireland — to  any  part  of  Germany,  Catholic  or  Infidel,  and 
find  if  possible  any  people  so  temperate,  pure,  chaste,  truthful 
and  benevolent  as  the  Sunday-keeping  communities  of  Amer- 
ica. It  cannot  be  done.  The  theatre,  the  horse-race,  the 
ball,  the  cricket-ground,  the  lager-beer  saloon,  have  nothing  in 
them  that  can  take  the  place  of  the  institutions  of  religion. 
They  are  established  and  practiced  in  the  interest  of  the  ani- 
mal, and  not  at  all  in  the  interest  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
side  of  humanity.  They  can  neither  build  up  nor  purify. 
They  minister  only  to  thoughtlessness  and  brutality.  So 
much,  then,  seems  obvious :  ist. — That  we  cannot  do  without 
Sunday  as  a  day  of  physical  and  mental  rest;  2d. — That 
either  as  a  consequence  or  a  concomitant,  moral  and  spiritual 
improvement  goes  always  with  the  observance  of  Sunday  as  a 
religious  day ;  and,  3d. — That  Sunday,  as  a  day  of  amusement 
simply,  is  profitless  to  the  better  and  nobler  side  of  human 
nature  and  human  life. 

Now  the  questions  relating  to  the  opening  of  parks,  libra- 
ries, reading-rooms,  etc.,  in  great  cities  on  Sunday,  are  not 
moral  or  religious  questions  at  all, — they  are  prudential,  and 
are  to  be  settled  by  experiment.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
there  are  large  numbers  of  the  young  in  all  great  cities  who 
have  no  home.  They  sleep  in  little  rooms,  in  which  in  winter 
they  have  no  fire,  and  can  never  sit  with  comfort.  They  are 
without  congenial  society.  They  have  not  the  entree  of  other 


CHRISTIAN  PRACTICE. 


177 


homes  •  and  they  must  go  somewhere,  and  really  need  to  go 
somewhere.  Christian  courtesy  does  much  to  bring  them 
into  Christian  association,  and  ought  to  do  a  thousand  times 
more.  The  least  it  can  do  is  to  open  all  those  doors  which 
lead  to  pure  influences  and  to  the  entertainment  of  the  better 
side  of  human  nature.  A  man  who  seeks  the  society  of  good 
books,  or  the  society  of  those  who  love  good  books,  or 
chooses  to  wander  out  for  the  one  look  at  nature  and  the  one 
feast  of  pure  air  which  the  week  can  give  him,  is  not  to  be 
met  by  bar  or  ban.  Whatever  feeds  the  man  and  ignores  or 
starves  the  brute  is  to  be  fostered  as  a  Christian  agency.  The 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath. 
That  is  not  religion,  but  pagan  slavery,  which  makes  of  Sun- 
day a  penance  and  a  sacrifice.  It  is  better  that  a  man  be  in  a 
library  than  alone  all  the  time.  It  is  better  that  he  wander  in 
the  park  than  even  feel  the  temptation  to  enter  a  drinking- 
saloon  or  a  brothel.  The  Sunday  horse-car  is  justified  in  that 
it  takes  thousands  to  church  who  could  hardly  go  otherwise. 
The  open  library  is  justified  in  that  it  is  a  road  which  leads  in 
a  good  direction.  The  roads  devoted  to  Sunday  amusement 
lead  directly  away  from  the  Christian  church.  All  pure  ways 
are  ways  that  tend  upward,  toward  God  and  heaven. 

AMERICAN  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

Let  us  have  some  honest  talk  about  our  Sunday-schools. 
Admitting  that  they  are  useful  beyond  our  finite  calculation, 
and  that,  as  an  agency  in  Christian  civilization,  they  stand  in 
one  of  the  places  of  highest  importance,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to 
inquire  whether  there  may  not  be  in  them  some  tendencies  to 
evil,  some  wrong  ideas,  some  misconceptions  of  the  highest 
end  to  be  sought  in  their  operation  and  management. 

Let  us  touch  the  heart  of  the  matter  in  our  opening  state- 

12 


j  7  g  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

ment.  We  know  of  no  good  reason  for  sending  a  child  to  a  Sun- 
day-school, or  of  seeking  to  bring  a  child  into  a  Sunday-school, 
except  to  make  a  Christian  of  him.  We  are  in  the  habit  of 
speaking  of  Sunday-schools  as  "nurseries  of  the  Church;"  and 
no  phrase  could  be  happier  in  defining  that  which  is  undenia- 
bly the  first  object  of  a  Sunday-school — namely,  Christian  nur- 
ture. There  is  a  class  of  Sunday-schools,  in  large  cities  mainly, 
that  need  instruction  in  the  facts  of  Christianity,  but  it  is  true 
that  the  great  mass  of  children  in  the  Sunday-schools  of  the 
United  States  know  the  story  familiarly,  and  need  nothing  so 
much  as  to  be  religiously  impressed  and  brought  consciously 
and  by  a  sweet  and  solemn  choice  into  direct  relation  with  the 
great  object  of  worship,  and  into  a  voluntary  and  loving  alle- 
giance to  Him.  The  observations  of  a  life  of  observation  have 
taught  us  that  the  principal  good  results  of  Sunday-schools 
come  not  from  enterprising  and  gifted  superintendents,  come 
not  from  interesting  and  funny  story-tellers,  who  are  known 
technically  as  "  Sunday-school  men,"  come  not  from  singing 
sacred  words  to  Yankee  Doodle,  or  of  frivolous  words  to  still 
more  frivolous  tunes,  come  not  from  huge  feats  of  memory  in 
the  rehearsal  of  long  chapters  of  Holy  Writ,  come  from  none 
of  the  numberless  tricks  resorted  to  for  enthralling  juvenile  in- 
terest and  exciting  juvenile  ambition  and  love  of  praise,  but 
from  the  personal  influence  of  Christian  teachers,  who,  know- 
ing their  scholars  intimately  and  loving  them  tenderly,  lead 
them  by  the  power  of  their  love  and  the  light  of  their  own 
Christian  character  into  the  adoption  of  a  Christian  life. 

Nothing  is  more  notorious  than  the  fact  that  a  man  may 
carry  the  whole  scheme  of  Christian  truth  in  his  mind  from 
ooyhood  to  old  age  without  the  slightest  effect  upon  his  char- 
acter and  aims.  It  is  there,  but  it  fructifies  nothing.  It  has 
less  influence  than  the  multiplication  table.  A  community  may 


CHRISTIAN  PR  A  CTICE.  r  79 

be — and  often  is — thoroughly  intelligent  in  everything  relating 
to  the  facts  and  claims  of  Christianity,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
almost  hopelessly  frivolous  or  vicious.  It  follows,  then,  that  a 
Sunday-school  which  does  no  more  than  teach  fails  to  do  that 
thing  without  which  teaching  is  of  very  little  account.  The 
power  of  a  Sunday-school  to  make  Christians  of  its  scholars  re- 
sides almost  entirely  in  its  teachers.  If  they  are  Christians  in- 
deed, and  are  possessed  by  the  Christian's  love  of  the  young 
natures  committed  to  their  keeping  and  leading,  they  will  never 
rest  until,  by  all  practical  means,  they  have  endeavored  to  lead 
them  to  the  adoption  of  that  life  which  is  the  highest  placed 
before  the  choice  of  humanity.  The  best  minds  and  finest 
spirits  of  a  church  ought  always  to  be  in  the  Sunday-school. 
The  highest  office  of  this  age,  or  of  any  age,  is  that  of  a  Chris- 
tian teacher;  and  a  man  who  can  look  with  contempt  upon  the 
office  of  Sunday-school  teacher,  or  regard  it  as  detracting  in 
any  degree  from  his  personal  dignity,  betrays  inevitably  the 
feebleness  of  his  conceptions  and  the  shallowness  of  his  piety. 
How  many  churches  are  there  in  which  there  are  not  men  and 
women  who  look  upon  Sunday-school  teaching  as  a  burden  and 
a  bore?.  How  many  Sunday-schools  are  there  in  which  there 
are  not  teachers  who  stand  week  after  week  before  their  classes, 
refusing  themselves  to  receive  and  profess  the  religion  whose 
truths  they  undertake  to  impart? 

With  such  views  as  these — stated  or  indicated — our  readers 
will  conclude  that  we  have  not  a  very  favorable  opinion  of 
much  of  the  machinery  used  in  Sunday-schools.  The  children 
are  not  to  blame  for  demanding  excitement  and  amusement, 
because  these  have  been  the  means  resorted  to  for  bringing 
them  into  Sunday-school  and  keeping  them  there.  Indeed, 
the  impression  is  quite  prevalent  among  the  children  of  some 
schools  that  they  are  conferring  a  great  favor  on  superintendent 


!  go  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

and  teachers  by  their  attendance.  If  they  cannot  get  funny 
books,  or  premiums,  or  hear  funny  stories,  or  have  picnics,  or 
Christmas  presents,  or  some  visible  reward,  they  threaten  to 
leave  the  school, — either  to  stay  out  entirely,  or  go  to  some 
other  school  where  they  can  obtain  what  they  demand.  So 
all  sorts  of  means  are  resorted  to  to  keep  up  excitement,  and,  in 
the  mean  time,  they  get  no  religious  impression  whatever. 
The  tunes  they  sing  amuse  them,  but  nurse  no  spirit  of  devo- 
tion. The  books  they  read  and  the  stories  they  hear  interest 
them,  but  leave  no  result  except  hunger  for  more  excitement 
of  the  same  kind.  The  premiums  they  win  inspire  their  pride 
in  a  sort  of  excellence  which  spares  little  room  for  Christian 
humility.  In  one  way  and  another,  the  opportunities  of  mak- 
ing a  deep  and  good  impression  upon  character  and  life  are 
frittered  away,  and  the  children  are  no  better  prepared  to  enter 
upon  life  and  the  resistance  of  its  multiplied  temptations  to 
evil  than  if  they  had  never  seen  a  Sunday-school. 

In  our  judgment  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  machinery  insti- 
tuted by  professional  Sunday-school  men  that  is  the  veriest 
humbug.  They  have  complicated  that  which  is  unspeakably 
simple.  They  have  undertaken  to  do  that  by  artificial  proc- 
esses and  by  ingenious  contrivances  which  can  only  be  done 
well  through  the  instincts  of  a  loving  heart  and  a  heaven-en- 
kindled zeal.  The  touch  of  a  gentle  hand  in  the  exhibition  of 
a  personal  affection  and  interest  is  worth  ten  thousand  times 
more  than  the  most  elaborate  exposition  of  Bible  truth  on  a 
black-board.  If  superintendents  and  teachers  possess  common 
sense,  and  know  exactly  what  they  wish  to  do,  and  wish  first 
and  most  to  make  Christians  of  their  children,  let  them  follow 
their  own  methods,  and  leave  the  professional  methods  to  those 
who  need  them. 


CHRISTIAN  PR  A  CTICE.  1 8 1 

SHAKERISM. 

Something  has  been  written  recently  on  the  public  worship 
of  the  Shakers,  which  has  not  been  relished  by  that  eccentric 
sect;  and  we  hear  that  they  have  shut" out  the  world  from  their 
social  religious  gatherings.  We  are  glad  they  have  taken  this 
step.  No  poorer  way  of  spending  Sunday  was  probably  ever 
found  than  that  of  attending  a  Shaker  meeting;  and  when  it  is 
remembered  that  no  one  from  "  the  world"  ever  looked  in  upon 
such  a  gathering  with  any  motive  but  that  of  curiosity,  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  Shakers  themselves  have  lost  nothing  by  the 
change.  They  probably  never  made  a  convert  by  their  exhi- 
bition, or  excited  in  the  minds  of  the  strange  witnesses  of  their 
worship  any  feelings  but  those  of  mingled  wonder  and  pity. 
If  other  sentiments  than  these  were  ever  roused,  we  fear  they 
were  not  in  consonance  with  the  spirit  of  the  day.  But  they 
have  a  right  to  worship  as  they  will,  and  to  do  it  without  intru- 
sion and  disturbance.  If  they  find  their  way  to  the  Good 
Father  by  a  road  that  seems  so  very  strange  to  us,  it  is  entirely 
their  business,  or  a  business  between  them  and  their  Maker. 
If  a  worldly  man  is  moved  to  mirth  by  their  methods,  why, 
they  must  wonder  and  pity  too,  and  not  get  angry  about- it. 
This  thin-skinned  sensitiveness  to  frank  and  honest  comment 
will  never  do.  It  is  not  only  a  sign  of  weakness,  but  a  proof 
of  the  consciousness  of  it. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  quickly  the  marriage  relation  begins 
to  be  tampered  with  when  any  body  of  religionists  begins  to 
get  new  light,  or  light  additional  to,  or  independent  of,  the 
Christian  revelation.  The  Mormon  gets  new  light,  and  forth- 
with he  gets  new  wives.  The  Shaker  gets  new  light,  and 
straightway  he  divorces  himself  from  womankind.  The  Spirit- 
ualists of  the  baser  sort  get  new  light,  and  adopt  the  most  free 
and  easy  policy  of  "touch  and  go."  Always  with  new  light 


j  g  2  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

this  institution  of  Christian  marriage  shows,  by  its  perturba- 
tions, how  central  and  vital  it  is  in  our  social  system.  To  the 
observant  philosopher  this  matter  of  marriage  has  become  a 
sort  of  test  or  touchstone  in  the  examination  of  every  new 
scheme  of  social  and  religious  life;  and  it  may  safely  be  calcu- 
lated that  any  scheme  which  interferes  with  Christian  marriage 
— any  scheme  which  interferes  with  its  prevalence  and  free- 
dom, or  reflects  upon  its  honor  and  purity,  or  undermines  its 
sacredness,  or  cheapens  its  obligations — is  either  intentionally 
or  mistakenly  unchristian;  sometimes  the  former,  often  the 
latter. 

The  assumption  of  the  Shaker  is  that  he  leads  a  purer  life 
than  the  world  around  him,  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that 
none  marry  or  are  given  in  marriage  within  the  circle  of  his 
sect.  He  acknowledges  that  the  society  of  woman  in  the  inti- 
mate relations  of  a  wife  would  be  inexpressibly  sweet  to  him. 
He  acknowledges  that  it  would  be  delightful  to  be  surrounded 
by  his  own  children,  and  that  the  loves  of  wife  and  children 
would  be  full  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to  him.  All  this  he 
sees  and  talks  about  with  candid  and  respectful  outsiders.  In- 
deed, it  is  this  fact  that  gives  the  great  significance  to  his  life 
and  his  religion.  Destroy  the  idea  lying  in  the  representative 
Shaker's  mind,  that  he  merits  something  for  the  voluntary  sur- 
render of  these  loves  and  satisfactions,  and  his  Shakerism  has 
gone  to  ruin.  He  is  to  get  something  for  his  self-denial.  He 
is  to  win  the  favor  of  Heaven,  and  a  high  seat  in  heaven  itself, 
as  a  reward  for  his  hardships.  He  lays  up  treasure  by  his 
sacrifices.  That  is  Shakerism,  pure  and  simple.  That  is 
Shakerism  in  the  kernel.  It  is  the  central,  vitalizing  idea  of 
the  system.  Modes  of  worship,  and  supplementary  revela- 
tions, and  industrial  policies,  do  not  make  Shakers.  It  is  the 
thought  that  by  surrendering  the  sweet  sinfulness  of  marriage, 


CHRIS  TIA  N  PR  A  C  TICE.  !  83 

and  undertaking  the  "angel  life"  in  this  world,  he  achieves  pre- 
eminence among  the  saints,  that  makes  the  Shaker,  and  replen- 
ishes his  little  sect  from  year  to  year. 

In  this  assumption  of  the  Shaker  lies  a  gross  insult  to  his 
own  father  and  mother,  and  to  all  fatherhood  and  motherhood 
in  the  world.  Even  the  virgin  mother  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ  was  not  set  apart  from  marriage,  and  all 
that  came  of  marriage,  by  the  divine  office  to  which  she  was 
appointed;  and  He  Himself  ministered  to  the  pleasures  of  a 
marriage  feast  which  he  attended  with  his  married  Mother. 
Many,  many  times  he  called  himself  the  "bridegroom,"  and 
the  marriage  relation  was  the  favorite  among  his  figures  for 
illustrating  the  pure  and  loving  intimacy  and  sympathy  between 
Himself  and  his  church.  The  Shaker  is  horribly  mistaken. 
Men  and  women  were  made  to  live  together  in  Christian  mar- 
riage; and  the  experience  of  the  world  has  proved  that  it  is 
not  those  who  live  out  of  wedlock  who  live  purely.  The 
unnatural  position  of  the  Shaker  concentrates  his  thoughts 
upon  this  subject,  and  we  venture  to  say  that  it  occupies  more 
thought,  and  more  damaging  thought,  among  Shakers,  and 
celibate  priests,  and  monks  and  nuns,  than  among  any  other 
people  of  equal  education  and  equally  good  principles  in  the 
world.  Human  nature  is  human  nature,  and  the  strongest 
human  passion  cannot  be  denied  its  legitimate  object  without 
a  constant  protest  that  destroys  personal  peace,  and  wars  per- 
petually upon  the  purity  of  the  mind.  It  is  useless  for  the 
Shaker  to  say  that  he  lives  more  purely  for  his  celibacy.  We 
know  better,  and  the  world  knows  better.  He  lives  a  life  of 
torture  and  of  meagre  satisfaction,  and  he  knows  it;  and  if  he 
did  not  think  that  he  was  in  some  way  making  something  by 
it,  he  would,  save  for  his  sensitive  personal  pride,  forsake  it. 
As  it  is,  he  simply  starves  himself  and  his  dupes,  and  shuts 


1 84 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


himself  off  from  personal  happiness  and  personal  usefulness. 
Who  is  doing  the  Christian  work  of  the  world?  Is  it  the 
Shaker?  Not  he.  He  draws  the  lines  around  him,  and 
selfishly  takes  care  of  his  own.  His  scheme  of  self-denial 
proves  itself  utterly  selfish,  in  that  it  gives  birth  to  no  self- 
denying  enthusiasms.  He  does  not  go  out  where  men  and 
women  live,  and  work  for  the  world,  but  he  stays  at  home  and 
works  for  himself.  He  has  neither  part  nor  lot  in  the  great 
schemes  for  Christianizing  mankind.  This  work,  which  he 
shuns,  is  done  by  those  gross  men  and  women  who  marry  and 
are  given  in  marriage.  Why,  there  is  more  Christian  heroism 
in  the  humble  little  household  of  the  Methodist  pioneer  minis- 
ter and  his  devoted  wife,  surrounded  by  their  children  and  their 
humble  flock,  than  all  the  Shaker  establishments  of  the  United 
States  ever  dreamed  of.  Are  we  to  talk  about  such  a  family 
as  being  more  impure  and  less  saintly  than  those  who  hold 
themselves  apart  from  each  other,  and  spend  their  lives  in 
fighting  a  passion  which  God  made  strong  that  his  institution 
of  the  family  life  might  be  well-nigh  compulsory?  Out  upon 
such  nonsense!  The  truth  is,  that  the  doctrines  of  these  peo- 
ple are  an  insult  to  the  Christian  world,  and  nothing  but  their 
failure  to  secure  a  wide  adoption  has  kept  them  from  being 
denounced.  They  have  little  influence  in  the  world,  and  will 
have  less  as  the  world  grows  wiser  and  better.  The  best  thing 
the  Shakers  can  do  is  to  pair  off,  and  go  to  separate  house- 
keeping. In  their  long  association  they  have  had  rare  oppor- 
tunities for  studying  each  other,  and  they  must  by  this  time 
understand  their  "affinities."  There  is  no  good  reason  why  a 
Shaker  should  not  have  a  wife,  and  there  are  ten  thousand 
good  reasons  why  he  should,  including  those  which  concern 
his  own  personal  purity,  and  the  pleasure  with  which  the  Good 
Father  regards  the  peace  and  the  heart-satisfactions  of  his 
children. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

THE  OUTLOOK. 

If  any  of  our  thoughtful  readers  have  omitted  the  perusal 
of  Dr.  Blauvelt's  articles  on  "Modern  Skepticism,"  we  beg 
them  to  go  back  and  read  every  word  of  them.  They  will 
there  obtain  a  view  of  the  infidelity  of  the  day  which  will  give 
them  food  for  reflection,  and  suggestions  for  action.  No  pa- 
pers published  during  the  last  five  years  have  presented  the 
extent  and  nature  of  modern  skepticism  with  such  faithfulness 
as  these.  They  ought  to  attract  universal  attention,  and  sum- 
mon the  whole  Christian  host  to  battle  under  leaders  who 
know  something  about  the  basis  of  Christianity  besides  the 
traditional  "apologies."  It  is  not  a  form  of  Christianity  that 
is  now  in  question.  It  is  not  a  question  between  sects.  It  is 
a  question  which  involves  Christianity  itself,  and  the  authority 
of  the  Bible.  Have  we  a  divine  religion  at  all  ?  Is  Chris- 
tianity anything  better  than  Buddhism,  or  of  any  higher  au- 
thority ?  If  the  Christian  optimist  supposes  that  these  ques- 
tions are  to  be  met  and  decided  by  the  "pooh-pooh"  of 
sectaries,  or  the  dicta  of  professional  teachers,  or  the  resolu- 
tions of  conferences  and  councils,  he  is  very  much  mistaken. 
We  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  pulpit  and  the  distinctively 
religious  press  will  have  very  little  to  do  with  the  matter,  and 
that  the  question  will  at  last  be  settled  where  it  has  been  un 


j  86  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

settled.  The  pulpit  can  do  very  little  in  any  direct  struggle 
with  infidelity,  because — not  to  mention  other  reasons — in- 
fidelity does  not  come  within  its  reach.  The  religious  press 
can  do  very  little,  because  infidelity  does  not  and  will  not  read 
it.  Both  these  powers  must  be  content  to  preach  Christianity 
as  well  as  they  can,  and  leave  the  struggle  to  be  decided 
among  those  who  have  a  common  desire  to  get  at  the  truth, 
whatever  that  may  be. 

It  may  as  well  be  understood  among  Christian  men  and 
women  that  they  are  every  day  doing  that  which  brings  their 
religion  under  suspicion  with  the  unbelieving  world.  The 
world  does  not  see  the  fruits  of  that  divine  influence  which  is 
claimed  for  the  Christian  religion  by  its  professors.  Nothing 
is  more  notorious  than  that  the  educated  men  of  France,  Italy 
and  Spain  are  infidel ;  and  nothing  has  been  better  calculated 
to  make  them  so  than  the  whole  policy  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  those  countries.  They  have  seen  a  populace  kept  in  igno- 
rance and  poverty  through  many  generations  by  a  Christian 
Church.  They  have  seen  that  populace  fed  with  traditions, 
machine-miracles,  shows,  processions,  humbugs,  by  a  priest- 
hood that  is  foolish  if  it  knows  no  better,  and  knavish  if  it 
does  know  better;  they  have  seen  that  priesthood  taking  side 
with  tyranny  against  every  popular  struggle  for  liberty  and 
liberal  institutions ;  they  have  seen  that  priesthood  grasping  at 
wealth  and  power,  and  intriguing  for  temporal  influence  all 
over  the  world.  This  is  the  Christianity  they  have  seen ;  it  is 
all  they  have  seen ;  and  their  conclusions,  when  made  against 
the  Catholic  Church,  are  made  against  Christianity  itself. 
Does  anybody  blame  them  ?  Not  we. 

The  influences  of  the  prevalent  form  of  Christianity  in  En- 
gland are  very  little  better  than  in  the  nations  mentioned. 
The  world  looks  on  and  sees  livings  bought  and  sold  like 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE.        ^7 

commissions  in  the  army — places  made  in  the  church  for 
younger  sons — wine-drinking,  pleasure-loving  men  in  the  pul- 
pit; and  then,  when  it  sees  any  action,  it  is  with  regard  to 
candles,  and  vestments,  and  rites  and  ceremonies  that  have  no 
more  vital  relation  to  the  redemption  of  mankind  and  the 
service  of  God  than  they  have  to  the  policy  of  the  Czar  in 
Turkey.  Is  it  supposed  that  men  of  common  sense  do  not 
and  cannot  see  through  all  this  stuff  and  nonsense  ?  Four 
hundred  of  these  clergymen  have  just  petitioned  for  what  they 
call  "sacramental  confession."  Drifting  toward  Romanism, 
grasping  after  new  and  old  machinery,  busied  only  with  husks 
and  human  inventions,  quarreling  over  baubles,  excommuni- 
cating their  own  free  thinkers  and  free  speakers,  obsequious  to 
worldly  grandeurs,  mingling  in  politics,  frowning  upon  non- 
conformists as  social  inferiors,  the  great  majority  of  the  English 
clergy  are  doing  what  they  can  to  manufacture  infidels  out  of 
all  Englishmen  who  do  their  own  thinking. 

And  here  in  America,  how  much  better  are  we  doing  ?  We 
fritter  away  our  energies  and  waste  our  substance  in  building 
costly  churches  for  the  rich,  in  multiplying  sects  and  keeping 
up  the  differences  between  them,  and  in  aping  the  wretched 
religious  fooleries  of  the  Old  World.  Our  organization  into 
a  hundred  religious  sects  amounts  to  the  disorganization  of 
Christianity.  There  are  thousands  of  towns  lying  religiously 
dead  to-day  because  there  is  not  Christianity  enough  in  them 
to  unite  in  obtaining  the  services  of  a  minister  who  has  brains 
enough  to  teach  them ;  and,  as  a  rule,  there  are  from  three  to 
six  religious  societies  in  all  these  towns — starveling  churches — 
monuments  only  to  the  ambition  of  the  sects  which  they  repre- 
sent. The  world  looks  on  and  scoffs.  The  world  looks  on 
and  recognizes  the  lack  of  power  in  Christianity,  or  of  such 
Christianity  as  it  sees,  to  unify  the  church  in  feeling  and  effort; 


!  88  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

and  it  learns  only  contempt  for  it.  Every  pulpit,  as  a  rule,  is 
a  party  pulpit.  Every  religious  press  is  a  party  press — pub- 
lished in  the  interest  of  a  sect  and  supported  by  it.  So  un- 
usual is  the  spectacle  of  various  bodies  of  Christians  coming 
together  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  common  Christian  pur- 
pose, that  it  is  noted  as  something  remarkable,  and  pointed  at 
with  self-complacent  boasting.  We  have  fashionable  churches, 
and  churches  made  attractive  by  music  that  costs  enough  to 
support  Christian  teachers  in  half  a  dozen  barren  districts,  and 
enough  of  the  exhibition  of  a  worldly  spirit  to  show  to  keenly- 
observing  outsiders  that  the  Christian  spirit  of  self-sacrifice 
and  the  Christian  faith  in  the  hereafter  are  not  in  us — are 
hardly  in  the  best  of  us. 

We  would  not  be  harsh,  but  we  ask,  in  all  candor,  if  there  is 
not  in  every  Christian  country  enough  in  the  aspect  of  Chris- 
tian people  to  make  their  religion  seem  a  hollow  pretense,  a 
thing  without  vital  power,  a  system  not  half  believed  in  by 
those  who  profess  it.  Does  not  the  world  find  us  quarreling 
about  non-essential  things,  striving  for  sectarian  precedence, 
and  practically  ignoring  the  fact  that  the  world  needs  to  be 
saved  through  simple  faith  in  and  following  of  Jesus  Christ? 
Really,  when  the  scientist  and  the  naturalist  come,  with  their 
scalpels  and  crucibles  and  blow-pipes,  and  tell  us  they  will  be- 
lieve in  nothing  they  cannot  see  and  weigh  and  measure,  there 
is  but  little  left  for  them  to  do.  Whose  fault  is  it  that  they 
find  their  work  so  easy?  Why  is  it  that  there  is  such  a  flutter 
when  they  speak,  except  that  those  who  profess  to  be  Chris- 
tians do  not  half  believe  in  Christianity,  and  have  no  rational 
comprehension  of  the  basis  of  such  belief  as  they  possess? 

Two  things  must  come  before  skepticism  will  be  overthrown, 
viz.:  ist.  A  perfect  willingness  to  go  into  an  examination  of 
Christianity  for  the  truth's  sake  alone.  Any  man  who  is  inter- 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


189 


ested  as  a  partisan,  either  for  Christianity  or  against  it,  is  unfit 
for  the  investigation.  So  far  as  the  claims  of  Christianity  are 
to  be  settled  by  investigation,  they  are  to  be  settled  by  men  whose 
supreme  desire  is  to  find  the  truth,  wherever  it  may  lead  or  land 
them.  2d.  Christianity  must  be  better  illustrated  in  life  by 
those  who  profess  it.  When  Christians  everywhere  are  con- 
trolled by  a  love  that  takes  in  God  and  every  human  being; 
when  "divine  service"  consists  of  ministry  to  the  poor  and  the 
suffering  and  not  of  clothes  and  candles;  when  the  Christian 
name  is  greater  than  all  sectarian  names  and  obliterates  them 
all;  when  benevolence  is  law,  and  humblest  service  is  highest 
honor,  and  life  becomes  divine,  then  skepticism  will  cease,  and 
not  till  then. 

A  TIME  TO  SPEAK:  A  TIME  TO  KEEP  SILENCE. 

The  introductory  words  of  the  preface  to  Matthew  Arnold's 
" Literature  and  Dogma "  are  these :  "An  inevitable  revolution, 
of  which  we  all  recognize  the  beginnings  and  signs,  but  which 
has  already  spread  further  than  the  most  of  us  think,  is  befall- 
ing the  religion  in  which  we  have  been  brought  up."  We 
wonder  how  far  the  American  clergy  have  recognized  these  be- 
ginnings and  signs.  We  wonder  how  far  they  are  recognized 
in  the  theological  schools,  where  the  young  men  of  the  present 
day  are  trained  for  the  Christian  ministry.  We  wonder  if, 
when  they  are  recognized,  they  are  published,  or  in  any  way 
prepared  for.  We  wonder  if  the  pulpit  anywhere  openly  rec- 
ognizes them,  undertakes  to  lead  the  people  safely  through 
them,  tries  to  occupy  the  new  stand-point,  and,  while  tossing 
aside  the  lumber  of  the  old  theologies,  grasps  firmly  the  vital 
truths  of  religion  and  proclaims  them. 

If  we  were  to  judge  by  the  hue-and-cry  raised  about  certain 
articles  that  have  appeared  in  this  magazine,  these  beginnings 


!  9o  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

and  signs  have  not  been  recognized  at  all;  yet  it  is  just  as  true 
in  this  country  as  in  England,  and  just  as  true  in  England  as 
for  twenty-five  years  it  has  been  in  Germany,  that  this  revolu- 
tion is  in  progress.  The  old  orthodox  view  of  the  Bible,  as  a 
plenarily  inspired  book,  from  the  first  word  of  Genesis  to'  the 
last  of  St.  John's  Revelation,  is  already  forsaken  by  more 
minds  than  can  be  counted;  and,  by  necessity,  with  the  relin- 
quishment  of  this  view,  goes  by  the  board  a  great  mass  of  the- 
ology entirely  dependent  upon  it  for  existence.  The  current 
popular  theology  cannot  possibly  be  saved  without  saving  the 
current  and  popular  view  of  the  Bible.  They  stand  and  fall  to- 
gether; and  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  many  of  our 
theologians  are  shaping  their  systems  and  teachings  by  their 
new  views  of  inspiration,  and  of  the  relative  importance  and 
authority  of  the  different  books  that  make  up  our  sacred  vol- 
ume. Are  we  to  go  on,  as  a  Christian  people,  until  criticism 
has  undermined  our  elaborate  systems,  and  those  systems 
fall,  carrying  with  them  those  simple,  vital  truths  which  the 
Bible  most  indubitably  holds,  and  upon  which  depend  the 
moral  health  and  the  salvation  of  the  race  ? 

Mr  Arnold  says,  "  there  is  no  surer  proof  of  a  narrow  and 
ill-instructed  mind  than  to  think  and  uphold  that  what  a  man 
takes  to  be  truth  upon  religious  matters  is  always  to  be  pro- 
claimed." Mr.  Greg,  in  one  of  his  "  Judgments,"  finds  seri- 
ous fault  with  this  proposition;  but  in  one  respect,  at  least,  it  is 
sound.  For  instance,  we  find  that  the  Christian  religion,  as  it 
is  taught  to-day,  and  has  for  many  years  been  taught,  is  a 
purifying,  elevating,  saving  influence  among  all  men  who  in 
faith  receive,  and,  in  life,  practice  it.  So  much  we  know — 
that,  however  false  our  theologies  may  be,  and  however  incor- 
rect our  views  of  all  that  relates  to  God  and  man  in  their  na- 
ture and  relations,  we  hold  enough  of  pure  and  vital  truth  to 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


191 


bring  the  hearts  of  men  into  sympathy  with  Jesus  Christ,  and 
their  lives  into  consonance  with  his.  Now,  until  a  man  has 
something  as  good  to  say, — something  more  sound,  simple, 
saving, — better  based,  more  easily  comprehended,  working 
larger  and  better  results — let  him  keep  silence  with  his  doubts, 
and  withhold  his  hand  from  destruction.  Nothing  is  more 
basely  cruel  than  the  destruction  of  any  system  of  religious 
life  that  has  good  in  it,  without  having  in  hand  something  bet- 
ter to  put  in  its  place.  The  time  for  keeping  silence  is  when 
one  has  nothing  to  put  in  place  of  that  which  his  words  are 
intended  to  destroy.  We  may  not  hold  the  truth  in  its  purity, 
but  we  hold  enough  of  it  to  make  it  invaluable,  and  until  we 
can  present  it  in  a  purer  and  a  more  fruitful  form,  so  that  those 
who  may  cut  loose  from  their  old  belief  shall  have  something 
to  grasp  that  is  better,  it  is  well  to  hold  the  tongue  and  restrain 
the  pen. 

The  facts  are,  however,  that  the  revolution  is  going  on  in- 
dependent of  the  theologians  and  the  religious  teachers,  and 
if  they  are  doing  anything  about  it  they  are  fighting  it.  The 
result  will  probably,  and  most  naturally,  be  a  reign  of  infidel- 
ity, out  of  which,  after  weary,  wretched  years,  we  shall  slowly 
emerge,  with  our  Christianity  purged  of  its  extraneous  doc- 
trines, and  with  a  new  class  of  religious  teachers,  who  will 
look  back  upon  the  present  position  as  one  of  gross  blindness 
and  fatal  fatuity. 

What  we  want  to-day  is  teachers  who  are  capable  of  com- 
prehending the  situation ;  who  have  learned  what  irreparable 
havoc  has  been  made  in  some  of  their  old  beliefs;  who,  cast- 
ing out  all  those  superstitious  notions  of  the  Bible  that  have 
made  it  half-talisman,  half-fetich  to  millions  of  men,  women 
and  children,  can  grasp  the  history,  meanings  and  uses  of  the 
book,  get  at  its  central,  saving  truths,  and  proclaim  them. 


192  THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE, 

There  is  no  question  that  Christianity  is  as  independent  of  our 
old  ideas  of  the  Bible  as  it  is  independent  of  our  ideas  of  the 
Koran,  or  our  ideas  of  any  book  or  anything  whatsoever.  We 
have  in  the  Bible,  when  we  find  it,  the  true  religion;  but, 
when  we  make  the  existence  of  that  religion  dependent  upon 
our  ideas  of  the  Bible,  we  do  it  the  crudest  wrong  that  we 
can  inflict  upon  it. 

And  that,  precisely,  is  the  danger  to-day.  The  people,  hav- 
ing been  taught  to  associate  the  religion  of  the  Bible  with  a 
certain  view  of  inspiration,  imagine  that  religion  stands  or  falls 
with  that  view.  There  could  not  be  a  more  natural  or  logical 
result  of  the  teachings  of  the  last  three  hundred  years  than 
this ;  and  if  religious  teachers  are  not  ready  with  their  answer 
when  the  time  comes  to  speak, — and  that  time  in  a  great  many 
communities  is  now, — a  crop  of  infidels  will  be  the  result.  The 
growing  inattention  to  religion  among  the  more  intelligent 
masses,  the  lack  of  religious  faith  in  the  literary  class,  the 
enmity, — sometimes  coarse  and  always  aggressive, — of  the 
scientists,  show  that  the  time  to  speak,  and  to  speak  in  earnest, 
has  come.  But  the  speaking  must  be  done  from  the  new 
stand-point,  and  with  a  thorough  recognition  of  the  modifica- 
tions that  science  and  criticism  have  wrought  in  the  materials 
and  combinations  that  have  entered  into  the  structure  of  our 
old  systems  of  faith  and  opinion.  The  old  machinery  and  the 
old  doctrine  will  not  avail  in  this  fight.  It  is  precisely  those 
that  are  the  subjects  of  dissent.  A  teacher  who  has  nothing 
but  these  with  which  to  meet  the  foes  of  religion  may  as  well 
retire  from  the  field  of  conflict. 

WHY  NOT? 

In  a  little  book,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Dorus  Clarke,  we  find  the  sen- 
timent of  Christian  unity,  so  popular  during  the  late  meetings 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE.  I93 

of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  New  York — so  frequently  ex- 
pressed, and  so  cordially  responded  to  by  those  in  attendance 
— supplemented  by  a  practical  proposition  which  demands 
from  the  Christian  public  a  candid  consideration.  Dr.  Clarke 
declares  the  existence  of  sects  to  be  a  reproach  and  not  a  com- 
mendation of  Christianity — that  "  it  was  not  so  in  the  begin- 
ning, will  not  be  so  in  the  end,  and  ought  not  to  be  so  now." 
Then,  after  disposing  of  the  usual  apologies  made  for  the  cre- 
ation and  preservation  of  sects,  he  declares  that  Christ  founded 
a  church,  and  not  a  sect,  and  that  the  unity  for  which  He 
prayed  was  an  open  and  organic  one,  as  well  as  a  spiritual 
one — that  the  world  might  know  that  the  Father  had  sent 
Him. 

The  larger  part  of  Dr.  Clarke's  book  is  devoted  to  an  effort 
to  show  how  all  sects  may  resolve  themselves  into  one, — or, 
rather,  how  all  the  sects  may  become  one  church, — at  least, 
all  those  who  accept  the  Bible  as  the  authentic  and  authorita- 
tive Word  of  God.  We  should  mar  his  work  by  undertaking 
to  condense  it ;  so  we  leave  our  readers  to  examine  it  in  de- 
tail in  the  book  itself,  while  we  allude  to  the  obstacles  that 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  consummation  so  devoutly  to  be  de- 
sired. 

Christianity  itself  is  not  responsible  for  one  of  these  obsta- 
cles. They  exist  entirely  in  the  minds  of  men.  As  we  have 
declared  elsewhere  and  often,  the  simple  facts  that  the  different 
evangelical  sects  recognize  each  other  as  Christians,  and  rejoice 
in  unity  of  spirit,  make  every  possible  apology  for  sectarianism 
an  absurdity.  They  are  an  open  confession  that  nothing  es- 
sential to  Christianity  divides  them,  and  keeps  them  divided, 
— an  open  confession  that  sectarian  divisions  are  based  upon 
non-essential  differences  of  belief,  policy,  and  practice.  The 
day  is  past  for  defending  sectarianism  from  the  divine  or  Chris- 


j  94  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

tian  side  of  the  question.  Christianity  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  such  a  defense.  The  founder  of  our  religion  never 
founded  a  sect,  and  the  religion  itself  is  not  responsible  for  one 
that  exists.  So  far  as  the  church  exists  it  is  spiritually  a  unit 
in  the  eye  of  Him  who  founded  it.  That  it  is  divided  into  par- 
ties which  compete  with  one  another,  and  quarrel  with  one 
another,  and  regard  one  another  with  jealousy,  and  are  full 
of  party  spirit,  is  man's  affair  entirely,  for  which  he  is  to  be 
held  responsible,  and  for  which  he  is  most  indubitably  blame- 
worthy. 

The  grand  obstacles  that  stand  in  the  way  of  organic  union 
are,  first,  a  failure  to  appreciate  the  necessity  and  desirableness 
of  such  a  union,  and,  second,  the  established  sectarian  organi- 
zations and  interests.  Now  in  our  political  affairs  we  accept 
the  adage :  "  In  union  there  is  strength,"  as  our  axiom.  No 
one  thinks  of  questioning  it.  A  number  of  free  and  independ- 
ent States  could  gather,  as  the  Evangelical  Alliance  did,  in  a 
representative  assembly,  on  a  common  basis  of  love  of,  and 
devotion  to,  liberty.  The  members  could  be  one  in  spirit,  and 
every  time  they  spoke  of  liberty  they  would  meet  the  applause 
of  the  multitude.  Yet,  when  these  members  should  separate, 
each  would  go  to  his  own,  and  exercise  his  liberty  in  building 
up  his  own,  even  at  the  expense  of  his  neighbor.  The  fact 
that  all  believe  in  liberty  forms  no  practical  union.  A  union 
which  lives  alone  on  a  sympathy  of  this  sort  would  not  make 
a  nation,  and  would  not  be  considered  of  any  practical  value 
among  the  nations  of  the  world.  The  fact  that  all  these 
States  are  founded  on  the  principle  of  liberty  and  that  all 
can  sympathize  in  the  love,  and  praise,  and  enjoyment  of 
liberty,  does  not  save  them  from  selfishness  and  jealousy,  and 
competition  and  quarrel;  while  against  a  common  foe  they 
present  no  united  front,  and  no  concentration  of  united  power, 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


'95 


The  analogy  between  the  position  of  such  States  and  the  Prot- 
estant Christian  sects,  in  the  aspect  in  which  we  present  them, 
is  perfect.  The  fact  that  these  sects  have  a  common  basis  of 
sympathy,  in  that  love  of  the  Master  on  which  they  are 
founded,  does  not  make  them  an  organic  Christian  church,  in 
any  open,  appreciable,  practical  sense.  It  does  not  restrain 
them  from  controversies,  quarrels,  and  competitions,  or  the 
outlay  of  that  power  upon  and  against  each  other  which  ought 
to  be  united,  and  brought  to  bear  upon  the  common  enemy. 
All  sectarian  and  party  spirit  in  the  church  is  of  the  earth, 
earthy;  and  is  not  only  contemptible  as  a  matter  of  policy, 
but  criminal  as  a  matter  of  principle.  When  all  Christians 
become  able  to  see  it  in  this  light, — and  they  are  thus  re- 
garding it  more  and  more, — the  first  grand  obstacle  to  the  ob- 
literation of  sects,  and  the  organic  union  of  the  church,  will 
have  been  removed. 

The  established  sectarian  organizations  and  interests  will 
prove,  we  suppose,  the  most  serious  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
reform.  The  absolute  abolition  of  all  sectarian  machinery,  of 
all  sectarian  schools  of  theology,  of  all  sectarian  newspapers 
and  magazines,  the  amalgamation  of  diverse  habits  and  poli- 
cies, the  remanding  of  sectarian  officials  into  the  Christian 
ranks, — officials  many  of  whom  have  found  their  only  possibil- 
ity of  prominence  through  their  adaptation  to  sectarian  ser- 
vice,— all  this  will  involve  a  revolution  so  radical,  will  call  for 
so  much  self-denial  for  the  sake  of  a  great,  common  cause, 
that  the  Christian  world  may  well  tremble  before  it,  particu- 
larly when  it  sees  in  these  obstacles  something  of  the  horrible 
pit  of  selfishness  into  which  sectarianism  has  plunged  it.  But 
this  revolution  can  be  effected,  and  it  must  be.  It  is  foolish 
to  say  that  the  world  is  not  ready  for  it.  The  laity  are  already 
far  in  advance  of  the  clergy  on  this  subject;  and  if  the  clergy, 


196 


EVERY  DA  V  TOPICS. 


who  are  their  recognized  leaders,  do  not  move  soon  in  the 
right  direction, — soon  and  heartily, — they  will  find  a  clamor 
about  their  ears  which  it  will  be  well  for  them  to  heed. 
Through  whatever  necessary  convulsions,  Protestant  church 
unity  will  come.  Men  who  have  come  to  see  that  they  are 
kept  apart  by  no  difference  that  touches  vital  Christianity,  will 
not  consent  to  remain  divided. 

A  free,  enlightened,  united,  Protestant  Christianity,  arrayed 
against  the  repressive  despotism,  and  the  corrupting  supersti- 
tion of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  against  an  unbelieving 
world, — now  puzzled  and  repelled  by  the  differences  among 
Christians, — would  be  the  grandest  sight  the  world  ever  saw ; 
and  men  may  as  well  stop  praying  for  the  millennium  until 
they  are  ready  to  pray  for  that  which  must  precede  it.  This 
first,  and  then  purified,  reformed,  and  enlightened  Rome ;  and 
then,  the  grand  and  crowning  union  of  all ! 

HOW    MUCH    HAS    BEEN    GAINED? 

Among  the  various  important  topics  discussed  by  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  which  lately  met  in  this  city,  there  was  none 
that  awoke  more  interest  or  more  genuine  feeling  than  "  Chris- 
tian Unity."  It  was  a  topic  which,  under  the  circumstances, 
naturally  came  first  to  hand,  and  which  accompanied  the 
other  topics  all  through  the  programme.  It  was  recognized, 
indeed,  as  the  root  of  the  whole  enterprise,  and  it  gave  oc- 
casion for  the  expression  and  demonstration  of  a  great  deal 
of  true  Christian  feeling.  More  than  that,  the  vast  numbers 
of  people  who  listened  to  these  expressions,  and  the  still  larger 
numbers  who  read  the  report  of  them  in  the  newspapers,  gave 
a  hearty  "  amen  "  to  them  all. 

Now,  there  ought  to  come  out  of  all  this  some  high  practi- 
cal result ;  but  we  fear  that  it  will  be  a  long  time  coming 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


197 


The  first  conclusion  that  the  outside  world  arrives  at,  is,  that 
the  recognition  of  all  the  sects  by  each,  as  Christian,  and  as 
possessing  real  unity  of  spirit  and  life,  is  an  open  confession 
that  nothing  but  non-essential  questions  and  opinions  keep  the 
sects  from  actual  unity.  It  is  a  declaration,  emphasized  in 
many  notable  ways,  that  all  the  sectarian  quarrels  of  the  past, 
and  all  the  sectarian  differences  of  the  present,  relate  to  mat- 
ters that  do  not  touch  the  essentials  of  Christian  salvation  and 
Christian  character.  If  it  does  not  mean  exactly  this,  it  does 
not  mean  anything.  If  it  does  mean  exactly  this  then  all 
the  words  that  were  uttered  with  such  a  show  of  earnest- 
ness, and  endorsed  with  such  rounds  of  applanse,  were  a 
cheat.  So  much  has  been  gained;  and,  this  gained,  we  have 
a  right  to  ask  that  the  natural  consequences  of  the  step 
shall  not  be  hindered  or  set  aside.  The  first  natural  con- 
sequence is  that  no  sect  can  claim  the  right  to  make  a  creed 
that  shuts  out  a  Christian  from  its  fellowship,  and  that  every 
sect  is  bound  to  give  the  same  latitude  of  opinion  within 
its  communion,  on  all  non-essential  questions,  that  it  yields  to 
other  sects.  Now  let  us  see  how  much  real  sincerity  there 
has  been  in  the  declarations  so  eloquently  made  and  reiterated 
and  popularly  responded  to  in  the  meetings  of  the  Alliance ! 

Another  natural  consequence  is  the  consolidation  of  all  the 
sects  in  those  localities  where,  by  multiplication  of  sectarian 
churches,  Christian  work  is  feeble,  and  Christian  enterprise  is 
burdened  with  poverty  and  poisoned  by  jealousies  and  com- 
petitions. We  spent  the  last  summer  in  a  country  town  con- 
taining many  families  of  intelligence  and  culture,  supported  by 
an  interesting  and  thrifty  husbandry.  It  had  two  Presbyterian 
churches,  two  meetings  of  Friends, — the  progressive  and  the 
orthodox, — one  Methodist  church,  and  one  Episcopal.  With 
all  this  machinery,  it  could  hardly  be  claimed,  that  there  was 


198 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


an  active  interest  in  religious  affairs  in  the  town,  and  the  fact 
was  patent  that  not  one  of  those  churches  was  either  well  at- 
tended or  well  supported.  They  were  feeble,  struggling 
churches,  every  one  of  them ;  and  at  least  one  of  them  went 
outside  for  funds  to  keep  itself  alive.  There  are  ten  thousand 
just  such  towns  in  America — sect-ridden,  with  feeble  churches, 
usually  a  feeble  and  discouraged  ministry,  and  a  population 
grown  dead  for  lack  of  unity  in  the  church,  and  brains  and 
culture  and  fervor  in  the  pulpit.  To  build  a  large  church  in 
such  a  town  as  we  have  described,  to  fill  its  pulpit  with  a  first- 
rate  man,  to  bring  all  those  churches  together  in  a  union  that 
is  actual  and  not  sentimental,  would  be  like  bringing  life  to  the 
dead.  If  so  simple  a  thing  as  this  cannot  be  done,  for  reasons 
that  no  sane  man  can  dispute,  then  let  the  talk  about  Christian 
unity  cease  until  we  get  a  little  further  along. 

It  is  claimed  by  those  who  represent  the  various  sectarian 
organizations  that  the  people  are  not  ready  for  changes  so 
radical  as  this  would  be.  We  know  something  of  the  views 
and  feelings  of  the  people  on  this  subject,  and  we  declare  our 
conviction  that  they  are  half  a  century  in  advance  of  the 
clergy.  It  is  not  the  people  who  are  against  actual  Christian 
unity,  where  such  unity  is  absolutely  essential  to  Christian  suc- 
cess. The  sectarian  organizations  oppose  it.  The  sectarian 
newspapers  oppose  it.  The  sectarian  colleges  and  theological 
institutions  oppose  it.  The  sectarian  clergy  oppose  it.  It 
is  from  the  church  leaders  that  the  opposition  conies.  The 
entire  sectarian  machinery  and  policy  of  the  various  churches 
are  against  it.  Can  an  instance  be  given  where  the  governing 
sectarian  influences  have  combined  to  reduce  to  harmony  the 
denominational  differences  in  a  town,  and  bring  all  into  one 
fold,  under  one  shepherd  ?  We  shall  be  glad  to  hear  of  such  an 
instance;  we  certainly  never  heard  of  one. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


199 


The  question  may  legitimately  be  asked  of  those  who  de- 
clare that  the  people  are  not  ready  for  this  change,  whether 
they  are  doing  anything  to  prepare  them  for  it.  Do  they  pro- 
pose to  do  anything  in  the  future?  If  not,  then  we  can  arrive 
at  a  just  estimate  of  the  importance  which  actual  Christian 
unity  and  sectarian  success  relatively  obtain  in  their  judgments 
and  hearts. 

But  it  is  claimed  that  there  can  be  true  unity  of  spirit  among 
various  denominations.  We  do  not  deny  it.  We  believe  there 
has  been  this  among  those  who  have  constituted  the  membership 
of  the  Alliance,  to  a  very  great  extent.  We  do  not  expect  the  de- 
struction of  denominationalism  for  many  years.  With  its  present 
machinery,  it  can  do  much  for  Christianity  in  many  places,  partic- 
ularly in  large  towns  and  cities;  but  there  is  a  multitude  of  places 
where  it  is  a  constant  curse.  Is  denominationalism  willing  to  sink 
itself  there?  If  not,  then  there  is  no  use  in  talking  about  Chris- 
tian unity,  or  about  the  love  of  it,  or  about  devotion  to  it.  The 
people  desire  to  see  a  practical  embodiment  of  all  this  pleas- 
antness between  the  sects,  in  our  own  home  affairs,  as  well  as 
on  foreign  ground;  and  they  have  a  right  to  expect  it.  If 
they  do  not  get  it,  we  trust  they  will  undertake  the  matter  for 
themselves.  They  have  done  this  thing  more  than  once,  and 
they  can  do  it  again. 

CHURCH-DEBTS. 

The  way  in  which  church  edifices  are  built  nowadays  really 
necessitates  a  new  formula  of  dedication.  How  would  this 
read  ?  "  We  dedicate  this  edifice  to  Thee,  our  Lor.d  and  Mas- 
ter; we  give  it  to  Thee  and  Thy  cause  and  kingdom,  subject 
to  a  mortgage  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars 
($150,000).  We  bequeath  it  to  our  children  and  our  chil- 
dren's children,  as  the  greatest  boon  we  can  confer  on  them 


200  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

(subject  to  the  mortgage  aforesaid),  and  we  trust  that  they  will 
have  the  grace  and  the  money  to  pay  the  interest  and  lift  the 
mortgage.  Preserve  it  from  fire  and  foreclosure,  we  pray  Thee, 
and  make  it  abundantly  useful  to  Thyself, — subject,  of  course, 
to  the  aforesaid  mortgage." 

The  offering  of  a  structure  to  the  Almighty,  as  the  gift  of  an 
organization  of  devotees  who  have  not  paid  for  it,  and  do  not 
own  it,  strikes  the  ordinary  mind  as  a  very  strange  thing,  yet  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  not  one  church  in  twenty  is  built  in  America 
without  incurring  a  debt,  larger  or  smaller.  A  more  commodi- 
ous and  a  more  elegant  building  is  wanted.  A  subscription  is 
made  that  will  not  more  than  half  cover  its  cost,  and  money 
enough  is  borrowed  to  complete  it.  The  whole  property  is 
mortgaged  for  all  that  it  will  carry,  the  financial  authorities  are 
saddled  with  a  floating  debt  which  they  can  only  handle  on 
their  personal  responsibility,  and  then  comes  taxation  for  inter- 
est, sufficient  to  keep  the  church  always  in  distress.  This  sort 
of  church  enterprise  is  so  common  that  it  has  become  com- 
monplace. The  children  of  this  world  do  not  build  railroads 
with  capital  stock  paid  in,  but  they  build  them  with  bonds. 
The  children  of  light  really  do  not  seem  to  be  less  wise  in  their 
generation,  in  the  way  in  which  they  build  their  churches. 
Indeed,  we  think  the  latter  can  give  the  former  several  points 
and  beat  them;  for  the  paying  success  of  a  church  depends 
upon  more  contingencies  than  the  success  of  a  railroad,  and 
ts  bonds  really  ought  not  to  sell  for  more  than  fifty  cents  on 
the  dollar  "flat." 

If  we  seem  to  make  light  of  this  subject,  it  is  only  for  the 
purpose  of  showing  how  absurd  a  position  the  churches  have 
assumed  in  relation  to  it.  It  is  not  a  light  subject;  it  is  a  very 
grave  one,  and  one  which  demands  the  immediate  and  persist- 
ent attention  of  all  the  churches  until  it  shall  be  properly  dis- 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE.  2OI 

posed  of.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  exactly  a  Christian  act 
for  a  body  of  men  to  contract  a  debt  which  they  are  not  able 
to  pay.  It  is  hardly  more  Christian  to  refuse  to  pay  a  debt 
which  they  know  they  are  able  to  discharge.  It  can  hardly  be 
regarded  as  a  generous  deed  to  bequeath  a  debt  to  succeeding 
generations.  The  very  foundations  of  the  ordinary  church- 
debt  are  rotten.  They  are  rotten  with  poor  morality,  poor 
financial  policy,  and  personal  and  sectarian  vanity.  Does  any 
one  suppose  that  these  expensive  and  debt-laden  churches 
were  erected  simply  for  the  honor  of  the  Master,  and  given  to 
Him,  subject  to  mortgage? 

The  results  of  building  churches  upon  such  an  unsound  basis 
are  bad  enough.  The  first  result,  perhaps,  is  the  extinguish- 
ment of  all  church  beneficence.  The  church-debt  is  the  apol- 
ogy for  denying  all  appeals  for  aid,  from  all  the  greater  and 
smaller  charities.  A  church  sitting  in  the  shadow  of  a  great 
debt,  is  "not  at  home"  to  callers.  They  do  not  pay  the  debt, 
but  they  owe  the  money,  and  they  are  afraid  they  shall  be 
obliged  to  pay  it.  The  heathen  must  take  care  of  themselves, 
the  starving  must  go  without  bread,  the  widow  and  the  father- 
less must  look  to  the  God  of  the  widow  and  the  fatherless,  the 
sick  must  pine,  and  the  poor  children  grow  up  in  vagabondage, 
because  of  this  awful  church-debt.  All  the  meanness  in  a 
church  skulks  behind  the  debt,  of  which  it  intends  to  pay  very 
little,  while  all  the  nobleness  feels  really  poor,  because  it  is 
conscious  that  the  debt  is  to  be  paid,  if  paid  at  all,  by  itself. 

Again,  a  church-debt  is  a  scare-crow  to  all  new-comers.  A 
stranger,  taking  up  his  residence  in  any  town,  looks  naturally 
for  the  church  without  a  debt.  He  has  a  horror  of  debt  of  any 
sort,  perhaps,  and,  as  he  had  no  responsibility  for  the  church- 
debts  he  finds,  he  does  not  propose  voluntarily  to  assume  any. 
So  he  stays  away  from  the  debt-ridden  church,  and  the  very 


202  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

means  that  were  adopted  to  make  the  edifice  attractive,  be- 
come, naturally  and  inevitably,  the  agents  of  repulsion.  Debt- 
ridden  churches,  with  good  preachers,  do  not  need  to  look  be- 
yond their  debts  for  the  reason  which  prevents  more  frequent 
and  remunerative  accessions  to  their  number. 

Still  again,  church-debts  are  intolerable  burdens  to  their 
ministers.  They  must  "  draw,"  in  order  that  the  debt  may  be 
paid.  If  they  do  not  "  draw,"  they  must  leave,  to  make  place 
for  a  man  who  will.  The  yearly  deficit  is  an  awful  thing  for  a 
sensitive  minister  to  contemplate,  and  puts  him  under  a  con- 
stant and  cruel  spur,  which,  sometimes  swiftly  and  sometimes 
slowly,  wears  out  his  life.  The  feverish  desire,  on  the  part  of 
churches,  for  brilliant  or  sensational  preaching,  is  more  fre- 
quently generated  by  the  debt  than  by  any  other  cause.  In 
many  instances  the  minister  is  forced  into  being  a  politician,  a 
manager,  an  intriguer,  a  society-hunter,  rather  than  a  soul- 
seeker.  This  latter  point  is  a  painful  one,  and  we  do  not  pro- 
pose to  dwell  upon  it;  but  the  deference  to  the  man  of  money, 
shown  in  some  churches,  is  certainly  very  pitiful,  when  its 
cause  is  fully  understood. 

Now  isn't  it  about  time  to  make  a  new  departure  ?  Isn't  it 
about  time  for  the  debtor  churches  to  take  up  their  debts  like 
men,  and  discharge  them  ?  Isn't  it  about  time  to  stop  dedi- 
cating church  edifices  to  Jehovah,  subject  to  a  mortgage  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars?  Isn't  it  about  time 
that  churches  become  sound  in  their  moralities,  as  they  relate 
to  the  contraction  of  debts  which  they  either  will  not,  or  can- 
not, pay?  We  say  "yes"  to  all  these  questions,  and  we  know 
that  the  good  sense  and  Christian  feeling  of  the  country  will 
respond  Amen !  Let  that  "Amen"  be  put  into  practical  shape 
at  once,  so  that  a  thousand  churches,  now  groaning  under  their 
debt,  may  go  into  the  next  year  with  shoulders  light,  and  hearts 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


203 


not  only  lighter,  but  ready  for  all  the  good  work  that  is  going 
on  around   them, 

TEMPORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL. 

Great  public  interest  is  concentrated  upon  the  present 
struggle  of  Germany  with  the  Papal  power,  and  the  free  dis- 
cussion of  the  relations  of  that  power  to  the  allegiance  of  the 
citizen  to  his  own  Government,  now  in  progress  in  England. 
Mr.  Gladstone's  manifesto  has  placed  the  vital  question  in- 
volved squarely  before  the  English  people,  and  not  less 
plainly  before  all  the  people  of  Europe.  The  ingenious  pro- 
test and  denial  of  Archbishop  Manning  and  other  adherents 
of  His  Holiness,  have  failed  to  do  away  with  the  charge  of 
the  ex-Premier,  simply  because  it  cannot  be  done  away  with. 
The  assumption  of  supreme  authority  over  the  consciences  of 
men  by  a  man  who  claims  infallibility,  is  one  which  no 
Government  constituted  like  the  British  can  tolerate  with 
either  dignity  or  safety.  The  German  Government  is  right  in 
principle  on  this  question,  whether  it  be  just  and  wise  in  its 
measures  or  not ;  and  Mr.  Gladstone  occupies  a  position  that 
is  impregnable.  The  dogma  of  Papal  infallibility  is  an  offense 
to  the  common  sense  of  the  world,  and  the  doctrine  of  su- 
premacy which  grows  out  of  it  as  naturally  as  a  tree  grows 
out  of  the  soil,  is  a  challenge  and  an  insult  to  every  Govern- 
ment that  holds  and  protects  a  Catholic  subject  within  its  limits. 

This  would  seem  to  be  too  plain  a  matter  to  call  for  argu- 
mentation. To  claim  supremacy  in  matters  of  conscience, 
and  to  hold,  at  the  same  time,  the  power  of  deciding  on 
questions  of  conscience — of  declaring  what  is  right  and  what 
is  wrong,  in  all  things,  civil  as  well  as  religious — is  to  claim 
the  supreme  and  all-subordinating  allegiance  of  every  man 
who  belongs  to  the  Catholic  communion  in  every  country  of 


204 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


the  world.  How  any  fair-minded  man  can  deny  this  is  be- 
yond our  comprehension;  and  the  only  reason  why  the  mat- 
ter does  not  make  as  great  a  commotion  in  America  as  it  does 
in  Great  Britain  and  Germany,  is  that,  as  a  State,  we  have  no 
connection  with  the  Church.  Practically,  the  matter  is  of 
very  little  importance  to  us.  The  Catholic  Church  has  the 
same  toleration  here  that  the  Methodist  Church  has — no  more, 
no  less.  Our  Government  simply  protects  it  in  its  liberty,  and 
sees  that  its  own  laws  are  obeyed,  irrespective  of  all  church 
communions.  We  come  into  no  collision  with  it,  because  we 
assume  no  church  prerogatives  and  functions.  England  has  a 
State  Church,  and  it  cannot  tolerate  the  existence  of  two 
authorities  that  assume  supremacy  within  the  same  kingdom; 
but  England  is  weak  in  its  position,  because  itself  assumes  to 
be  an  authority  in  matters  of  religion. 

Theoretically,  the  Sovereign  of  Great  Britain  "  can  do  no 
wrong."  Here  is  a  doctrine  of  "  infallibility  ;  "  and  though  it 
has  no  such  range  as  that  of  the  Papacy,  and  is  applied  rather 
to  the  breaking  than  the  making  of  law,  it  is  just  as  absurd  as 
that  against  which  Mr.  Gladstone  inveighs  so  mightily. 
There  the  State  undertakes  to  meddle  with  the  Church.  It 
supports  and  in  many  ways  directs  it,  and  exercises  functions 
that  are  just  as  illegitimate  and  presumptuous  as  those  assumed 
by  the  Pope  with  relation  to  the  different  States.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  Prussia ;  and  the  Pope  has  good  right  to  say, 
if  he  chooses  to  do  so  :  "  Take  your  hand  from  religion,  and  I 
will  take  mine  from  the  State.  So  long  as  you  choose  to 
make  a  State  affair  of  religion  you  must  not  blame  me  for  do- 
ing the  same.  Give  me  back  my  kingdom  and  my  temporali- 
ties. Shape  your  policy  to  the  necessities  of  my  Church. 
Until  you  do  so,  I  will  define  the  limits  of  your  power,  and  of 
my  own,  as  it  seems  best  to  me,  and  best  for  the  interests  I 
have  in  charge." 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


205 


For  ourselves,  we  rejoice  to  witness  the  present  struggle. 
In  the  progress  of  the  world,  and  in  the  free  development  ot 
the  power  of  Christianity,  it  was  necessary  that  it  should 
come;  and  its  coming  marks  an  epoch  and  demonstrates  an 
advance.  Just  so  soon  as  the  nations  of  the  world  can  com- 
prehend the  fact  that  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  is  not  a  kingdom 
of  this  world;  that  it  is  within  men,  and  is  not  in  any  way 
complicated  with  civil  organization  and  administration, — just 
so  soon  will  all  strife  between  the  State  and  the  Church  cease. 
The  Pope,  if  report  be  true,  has  recently  said  that  the  only 
country  where  he  is  truly  and  practically  respected  is  the 
United  States.  The  reason  is,  that  the  State  simply  minds  its 
own  business,  and  lets  him  alone.  When  other  States -attend 
only  to  their  civil  functions,  and  let  the  Church,  in  all  its  de- 
nominations, take  care  of  itself,  they  will  care  no  more  about 
the  dogma  of  Papal  infallibility  than  they  do  about  the  civil 
dogma  of  regal  infallibility.  They  will  not  even  take  the 
trouble  to  "speak  disrespectfully  of  the  equator."  It  is  now 
essentially  a  fight  between  the  head  of  the  greatest  of  the 
churches  and  the  civil  heads  of  the  smaller  churches.  We 
have  no  such  head  in  America,  and  therefore  we  don't  care. 
Particularly,  we  do  not  care  how  soon  the  fight  proceeds  to  its 
predestined  end — the  disestablishment  of  all  the  churches  of 
Europe.  That  is  the  natural  solution  of  the  difficulty,  and 
the  only  possible  one.  It  may  come  through  "a  great  re- 
ligious war,"  which  the  wise  are  foretelling,  but  which  real 
wisdom  will  avoid,  by  putting  away,  at  once  and  forever,  its 
cause. 

The  ox  is  a  strong  and  excellent  beast,  but  he  cannot  be 
yoked  with  the  horse,  who  is  equally  strong  and  excellent. 
The  horse  cannot  work  according  to  his  law  without  wearing 
out  the  ox,  and  the  ox  cannot  work  according  to  his  law  with- 


206  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

out  degrading  the  horse,  and  cheating  him  of  his  power.  The 
Church  and  the  State  can  no  more  be  yoked  together  with 
natural  advantage  than  the  ox  and  the  horse.  Their  nature, 
wants,  modes  of  action,  drift  of  power  are  utterly  different, 
and  in  the  long  run  the  ox  will  drag  down  and  degrade  the 
horse.  To  undertake  to  unite  the  machinery  of  the  State  and 
the  Church  is,  in  the  end,  to  degrade  the  latter.  To  make  the 
Church  in  any  way  subordinate  to  the  shifting  necessities  and 
caprices  of  politics  is  a  practical  desecration  of  holy  things. 
We  believe  that  no  State  church  ever  existed,  whether  presided 
over  by  pope  or  king,  that  did  not  become  corrupt,  or  so 
nearly  dead  as  to  lose  its  aggressiveness  and  healthfulness  as  a 
spiritual  power.  Mr.  Gladstone  and  his  friends  have  only  to 
labor  earnestly  for  the  disestablishment  of  the  Church  of 
England,  to  lose  all  practical  interest  in  the  Papal  dogmas  and 
the  Papal  assumptions.  By  doing  this,  they  will  at  least  be  in 
a  position,  as  Englishmen,  to  oppose  them  with  some  show  of 
consistency. 

ORGANS. 

Machine  music  is  not  as  popular  as  it  was.  The  old-fash- 
ioned hand-organ  has  become  a  bore,  even  to  the  children; 
and  unless  it  be  supplemented  by  a  knowing  monkey,  with 
appeals  to  the  eye,  the  grinding  goes  on  without  reward.  This 
confinement  of  musical  execution  to  certain  tunes,  for  which 
the  player  is  not  responsible — this  circumscription  of  the  limits 
of  emotion  by  a  foreign  manufacturer — this  reiteration  of  the 
same  jingle  from  street  to  street,  at  all  times  of  the  day  and  in  all 
months  of  the  year,  to  ears  that  are  dainty  and  ears  that  are 
dull — all  this  conspires  to  make  the  organist  an  offense  and 
the  hand-organ  a  nuisance.  There  really  was  a  time  when 
things  were  different.  When  children  heard  no  music  in  the 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FU'SURE. 


207 


school  and  none  in  the  home,  when  brass  bands  were  scarce 
and  church-organs  were  supposed  to  be  an  invention  of  the 
devil,  or  one  of  the  seductions  of  the  Woman  of  Babylon,  it 
was  quite  nice  to  be  assured  by  a  dirty  Italian,  who  never  had 
a  home  in  his  life,  that  there  was  no  place  like  it,  even  when 
his  reluctant  instrument  groaned  and  fainted  away  on  the  last 
syllable. 

What  has  happened  with  regard  to  the  hand-organ  has  also 
happened  with  regard  to  party  organs  of  every  kind,  political 
and  religious.  The  fact  can  be  no  longer  ignored  that  the 
people  are  tired  of  organs.  A  newspaper,  recognized  as 
strictly  a  party  organ,  is  regarded  as  a  newspaper  without  any 
soul.  A  newspaper  that  is  simply  the  exponent  of  a  party 
policy,  the  defender  of  party  measures,  and  the  unvarying 
supporter  of  party  men,  is  looked  upon  with  a  contempt  in 
this  country  which  may  well  make  it  tremble  with  the  appre- 
hension of  its  certain  doom.  Party  organs  were  adapted  to  a 
simple,  unintelligent  condition  of  society.  At  a  time  when 
the  few  invariably  led  the  many,  when  the  great  masses  of  the 
people  pinned  their  faith  to  their  leaders,  and  did  not  do  their 
own  thinking,  the  party  organ  was  in  its  glory.  It  cracked  its 
whip,  and  the  whole  team,  however  widely  straggling,  came 
into  line.  It  blessed  and  blamed  at  will.  When  it  declared 
on^  man  to  be  a  patriot,  and  another  to  be  a  traitor,  the  peo- 
ple believed  it.  It  led  unquestioning  hosts  to  battle  for  meas- 
ures and  against  measures,  for  men  and  against  men,  according 
to  party  policy,  and  did  not  even  pretend  to  independence. 
Now,  everything  from  a  party  organ  is  regarded  with  distrust ; 
and  it  ought  to  be.  The  mouth-piece  of  a  party  is  never  the 
mouth-piece  of  a  man.  Its  utterances  are  all  shaped  by  the 
selfish  policies  and  interests  of  party  leaders;  for  the  strictly 
party  press  is  never  its  own.  The  people  have  learned  that 


2  Og  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

there  is  nothing  which  needs  to  be  accepted  with  so  much 
caution  as  any  political  statement  uttered  by  a  political  organ. 
The  chances  are  all  against  its  being  strictly  true.  In  short, 
the  people  have  outgrown  the  party  press,  and  the  day  of  in- 
dependent thinking  and  independent  "scratching"  and  bolting 
has  come. 

What  we  have  said  of  the  political  party  press,  is  quite  true 
of  the  religious  party  press.  It  has  come  to  be  absolutely  es- 
sential that,  in  order  to  the  achievment  of  a  large  success  in 
religious  journalism,  the  journal  shall  be  independent.  The 
strictly  sectarian  newspapers  are  not  regarded  at  all  with  the 
respect  which  was  formerly  accorded  to  them.  It  is  only  the 
independent  religious  press  that  wins  subscribers  by  the  hun- 
dred thousand.  Men  have  ceased  to  be  interested  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  questions  from  a  sectarian  stand-point.  Their  sym- 
pathies have  surpassed  sectarian  bounds,  and  their  interest  goes 
deeper  than  creeds.  They  want  to  know  what  the  inde- 
pendent thinker  thinks.  They  would  read  what  he  writes. 
They  have  learned  that  the  organ  of  a  sect  is  as  much  the  slave 
as  the  organ  of  a  party.  They  have  learned  to  think  little  of 
the  conflicting  systems  of  theology,  and  are  anxious  to  know 
something  about  religion.  They  are  less  anxious  about  any 
particular  "ism,"  and  more  interested  in  Christianity.  Or- 
thodoxy and  heterodoxy  mean  less  to  them,  and  truth,  mire. 
In  brief,  they  have  ceased  to  pin  their  faith  to  sectarian  lead- 
ers, and  are  thinking  for  themselves. 

Now,  all  this  is  undoubtedly  true,  and  what  is  to  be  done 
about  it  ?  Is  it  a  good  thing,  or  a  bad  thing  ?  Without  any 
question  it  is  a  good  thing.  It  marks  an  era  in  the  develop- 
ment of  American  Christianity.  Everything  that  looks  toward 
Christian  unity  breaks  the  power  of  the  religious  party  press. 
Whatever  the  late  meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  did  to 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE.  209 

forward  Christian  unity  drove  a  nail  in.  the  coffin  of  the  secta- 
rian organ;  and  more  and  more  in  the  future  the  sectarian 
organ  will  cease  to  be  a  moral  and  religious  power  in  the 
world,  until  it  shall  become  simply  a  record  of  sectarian  de- 
cadence. 

Meantime,  the  great  masses  of  the  people  will  read  only  for 
instruction  and  inspiration  such  records  of  independent  re- 
ligious thought  as  emanate  from  those  whose  interest  in  Chris- 
tianity is  so  deep  and  broad  that  they  have  no  partisanship, 
and  no  party  schemes  to  promulgate.  All  advance  towards 
Christian  unity — all  advance  towards  vital  Christianity — is  an 
actual  retirement  from  the  influence  of  the  sectarian  organ; 
and  one  of  the  best  signs  of  the  times  is  the  recognized  ne- 
cessity of  urgent  appeals  to  the  people  for  the  support  of  the 
organs  representing  the  different  sects. 

Everything  goes  to  prove  that  religious  truth  is  to  be  formu- 
lated anew,  in  the  interest  of  Christian  unity,  and  it  is  proper 
to  ask  those  clergymen  who  stand  by  their  party  organs,  and 
hold  themselves  up  as  the  representatives,  conservators  and 
defenders  of  orthodoxy,  if  it  is  not  about  time  for  them  not 
only  to  recognize  the  signs  of  the  day,  but  to  begin  to  be  true 
to  their  own  convictions.  There  is  no  one  of  them  who  can 
express  fully  on  paper  his  views  of  the  Sabbath  question,  or 
the  Bible  question,  or  the  question  of  future  punishment,  to 
say  nothing  of  questions  still  higher,  and  get  all  his  orthodox 
associates  to  sign  that  paper.  There  are  numbers  of  them 
who  do  not  choose  to  preach  the  doctrines  which  they  profess, 
and  who  do  not  fully  preach  what  they  believe.  And  they 
call  themselves  orthodox,  and  they  criticise  the  orthodoxy  of 
others,  and  they  dread  the  proscription  of  the  sectarian  press, 
from  whose  influence  the  people  are  becoming  more  and  more 
free  every  year.  Woe  to  a  sectarian  press  that  stands  in  the 


2  r  o  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

way  of  progress,  and  woe  to  those  mistaken  teachers  who 
either  bow  to  that  press  in  front,  or  bolster  it  behind.  The 
organ  is  worn  out.  It  creaks  and  groans  and  whines  with  its 
old,  old  tunes,  and  they  who  turn  the  crank  have  lost  their 
admirers,  because  the  children  have  become  men  and  women, 
and  can  do  better  with  their  time  and  money. 

THE  FREE-CHURCH  PROBLEM. 

There  is  one  sad  fact  that  stares  the  churches  of  this  city, 
and  of  all  other  American  cities,  in  the  face,  viz.,  that  Chris- 
tianity is  not  preached  to  the  poor.  If  we  step  into  almost 
any  church  on  Fifth  and  Madison  Avenues,  on  any  Sunday, 
we  shall  find  there  a  well-dressed  crowd,  or  a  thinly  scattered 
company  of  fashionable  people,  and  almost  no  poor  people  at 
all.  These  churches  may  carry  on,  and,  as  a  rule,  do  carry 
on,  a  Mission  Sunday-school  in  some  part  of  the  city,  where 
a  great  deal  of  useful  work  is  done.  Under  the  circum- 
stances, they  do  as  well  as  they  can;  but  the  fact  remains, 
that  the  people  whose  children  are  taught  do  not  enter  a 
church  at  all.  It  is  in  vain  that  they  are  invited  to  attend 
preaching;  and  the  fact  is  demonstrated  beyond  all  question, 
as  it  appears  to  us,  that  there  must  be  a  change  effected  in  the 
basis  and  policy  of  church  support  before  they  can  be  induced 
to  do  so.  We  may  attribute  their  non-attendance  to  indif- 
ference to  religious  subjects.  This  is  an  easy  method  of  re- 
lieving ourselves  of  responsibility,  but  in  view  of  the  alarming 
fact  that  this  indifference  is  steadily  increasing,  it  becomes  us 
to  inquire  whether  the  Church  itself  does  not  come  in  for  a 
share  of  the  blame,  and  to  find,  if  possible,  where  that  blame 
lies. 

We  have  before  us  a  book  entitled  "  Copy"  by  Hugh  Miller 
Thompson,  Rector  of  Christ  Church,  in  this  city,  consisting 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE.        2n 

of  between  sixty  and  seventy  brief  editorial  articles,  which 
has,  we  may  say  in  passing,  more  straightforward  common 
sense  in  it  than  any  book  we  have  met  with  in  a  year,  and 
which  presents  to  us  two  articles  respectively  revealing  the 
basis  of  our  difficulty  and  the  way  of  release  from  it.  The 
first  is  entitled,  "  A  Proprietary  Christianity,"  and  the  second, 
"  A  lost  Act  of  Worship."  We  do  not  propose  to  quote  from 
them,  for  we  have  not  the  space,  but  if  the  reason  for  a  change 
in  the  basis  of  church  support,  and  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  a  free  church  are  not  to  be  found  in  them,  then  they  are 
hardly  to  be  found  in  current  literature.  Our  churches  are 
houses  of  men,  and  not  houses  of  God.  They  are  largely 
owned  by  individuals,  and  not  by  the  church,  or  by  any  body 
of  men  representing  the  church.  Either  this  is  the  case,  or 
they  are  sold  every  year  to  the  highest  bidder.  Tremendous 
expenditures  are  made  in  building  churches;  great  outlays  of 
money  are  needed  for  carrying  them  on;  in  most  of  the 
churches  there  is  absolute  ownership  of  pews  on  the  part  of 
individuals ;  and  by  private  sale  or  public  auction  the  sittings 
are  apportioned  to  those  who  have  the  money  to  pay  for  them. 
There  are  free  sittings,  of  course,  but  the  men  for  whom  they 
are  left  will  not  take  and  occupy  them,  and  thus  publicly  ad- 
vertise themselves  as  paupers.  It  seems  plain  to  us  that  some 
change  must  be  made  exactly  here,  before  the  first  step  can  be 
taken  toward  reform.  Indeed,  this  change  must  be  the  first 
step.  Our  houses  of  worship  must  be  recognized  as  houses  of 
God — houses  in  which  there  are  no  exclusive  rights  purchasa- 
ble in  any  way  by  money — houses  where  the  rich  man  and  the 
beggar  meet  on  common  ground  to  worship  a  common  Lord 
— houses  to  any  seat  in  which  any  man,  high  or  low,  rich  or 
poor,  has  equal  right  with  any  other  man.  We  have  tried  the 
other  plan  long  enough,  and  ought  to  be  satisfied  by  this  time 
that  it  is  a  failure,  as  it  most  lamentably  is. 


212  £ VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

Now  comes  up  the  question  of  church  support.  A  church 
cannot  be  "  run"  without  money.  It  cannot  be  built  or  bought 
without  money.  Well,  in  the  first  place,  churches  need  not 
cost  half  the  money  they  do,  either  to  build  or  to  carry  on.  We 
pay  immense  sums  to  make  churches  attractive,  and  there  are 
those  in  New  York  that  are  crammed  every  Sunday  simply  for 
the  purpose  of  hearing  expensive  music.  There  is  a  very 
large  attendance  upon  certain  churches  in  this  city  that  has 
not  the  first  motive  of  worship  in  it — churches  in  which 
artistic  music  is  made  so  prominent,  indeed,  as  quite  to  put 
all  ideas  of  worship  out  of  the  mind  of  those  who  are  music- 
ally inclined.  There  is  not  only  money  enough  for  all  neces- 
sary purposes,  but  money  is  absolutely  wasted.  Our  churches 
are  now  built  and  run  on  the  theory  that  men  will  pay  for  ex- 
clusive privileges  for  themselves,  and  will  not  pay  for  free 
privileges  for  all. 

And  here  is  where  Dr.  Thompson's  article  on  "  A  lost  Act 
of  Worship"  comes  to  its  practical  bearing.  He  claims  that 
the  Worship  of  God  in  Gifts  has  been  lost,  and  ought  to  be 
recovered.  The  first  worship  offered  to  Christ  on  earth  was  a 
worship  of  gifts.  Gifts  were  recognized  acts  of  worship  in  the 
Jewish  church  from  time  immemorial.  All  that  is  necessary  is 
to  re-instate  this  act  of  worship,  so  that  every  Christian  who 
goes  to  church  shall  bring  with  his  tribute  of  prayer  and  praise 
his  offering  of  money,  as  an  act  of  worship,  in  order  to  solve 
the  free  church  problem  at  once.  Churches  are  to  be  built  by 
gifts  offered  in  worship — by  a  dedication  of  substance  as  well 
as  of  self;  and  they  are  to  be  carried  on  in  the  same  way. 
We  believe  that  if  the  solution  of  the  free  church  problem  is 
anywhere,  it  is  here.  We  are  to  lay  aside  all  ideas  of  the 
ownership  of  pews,  in  every  sense,  and  to  bring  every  Sunday 
our  offering  of  gifts,  according  to  our  ability  and  our  degree  of 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


213 


prosperity,  as  an  act  of  worship,  just  as  conscientiously  as  we 
bring  our  petition  and  our  praise.  We  believe  in  the  theory 
and  in  the  plan  wholly,  and  thus  believing  we  believe  it  to  be 
wholly  practicable.  We  have  not  a  question  that  a  living 
Christian  church,  thoroughly  enlightened  on  this  subject  by  a 
clergyman  sympathetic  with  these  views,  would  find  the  ob- 
stacles to  the  plan  all  removed,  as  well  as  the  obstacles  to  its 
usefulness.  Of  course  the  church  must  go  through  a  process  of 
education  to  bring  it  to  this  high  plane,  but  we  are  satisfied  that  it 
must  be  brought  here  before  its  triumphs  will  be  great — before 
it  will  check  in  any  considerable  degree  the  tide  of  worldliness 
that  threatens  to  engulf  it,  or  bring  its  influence  to  bear  upon 
those  who  persistently  refuse  to  hear  its  voice. 

The  experiment  will  not  be  a  new  one  of  sustaining  a  church 
on  the  current  gifts  of  its  attendants,  but  this  grand  idea  of 
incorporating  acts  of  beneficence  into  the  regular  Sunday  wor- 
ship of  the  Christian  church  will  be  new  to  the  great  multitude, 
and,  if  adopted,  will  forever  relieve  the  preacher  from  appear- 
ing before  his  people  as  a  beggar.  It  will  make  the  churches 
God's  houses  and  not  man's,  and  the  ministry  of  the  churches 
a  universal  ministry.  It  will  at  least  secure  the  world's  confi- 
dence in  our  sincerity,  and,  if  it  persists  in  its  indifference, 
leave  it  without  excuse. 

CHEAP  OPINIONS. 

There  is  probably  nothing  that  so  obstinately  stands  in  the 
way  of  all  sorts  of  progress  as  pride  of  opinion,  while  there  is 
nothing  so  foolish  and  so  baseless  as  that  same  pride.  If  men 
will  look  up  the  history  of  their  opinions,  learn  where  they 
came  from,  why  they  were  adopted,  and  why  they  are  main- 
tained and  defended,  they  will  find,  nine  times  in  ten, 
that  their  opinions  are  not  theirs  at  all, — that  they  have  no 


214 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


property  in  them,  save  as  gifts  of  parents,  education,  and  cir- 
cumstances. In  short,  they  will  learn  that  they  did  not  form 
their  own  opinions, — that  they  were  formed  for  them,  and  in 
them,  by  a  series  of  influences,  unmodified  by  their  own  reason 
and  knowledge.  A  young  man  grows  up  to  adult  age  in  a 
Republican  or  Democratic  family,  and  he  becomes  Republican 
or  Democrat  in  accordance  with  the  ruling  influences  of  the 
household.  Ninety-nine  times  in  a  hundred  the  rule  holds 
good.  Like  father,  like  son.  Children  are  reared  in  the 
Catholic  Church,  in  the  Episcopal,  Unitarian,  Presbyterian, 
Baptist,  Methodist  Churches,  and  they  stand  by  the  Church  in 
whose  faith  and  forms  they  were  bred.  They  become  parti- 
sans, wranglers,  defenders,  on  behalf  of  opinions,  every  one  of 
which  they  adopted  without  reason  or  choice.  Touch  them 
at  any  point,  and  they  bristle  with  resistance,  often  with 
offense ;  yet  they  borrowed  every  opinion  they  hold !  If  they 
had  all  been '  changed  about  in  their  cradles,  we  should  have 
the  same  number  of  partisans,  only  our  present  Republican 
would  be  a  Democrat,  our  Roman  Catholic  would  be  a  Meth- 
odist, and  so  on  through  all  the  possibilities  of  transformation. 
Opinions  acquired  in  the  usual  way  are  nothing  but  intellect- 
ual clothes,  left  over  by  expiring  families.  Some  of  them  are 
very  old-fashioned  and  look  queerly  to  the  modern  tailor ;  but 
they  have  the  recommendation  of  being  only  clothes.  They 
do  not  touch  the  springs  of  life,  like  food  or  cordial.  Certainly 
they  are  nothing  to  be  proud  of,  and  they  are  not  often  any- 
thing to  be  ashamed  of.  Multitudes  would  not  be  presentable 
without  them,  as  they  have  no  faculty  for  making  clothes  for 
themselves.  The  point  we  make  is,  that  opinions  acquired  in 
this  way  have  very  little  to  do  with  character.  The  simple 
fact  that  we  find  God-fearing,  God-loving,  good,  charitable, 
conscientious,  Christian  men  and  women  living  under  all  forms 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


215 


of  Christian  opinion  and  church  organization,  shows  how  little 
opinion  has  to  do  with  the  heart,  the  affections  and  the  life. 
Yet  all  our  strifes  and  all  our  partisanships  relate  to  opinions 
which  we  never  made,  which  we  have  uniformly  borrowed, 
and  which  all  Christian  history  has  demonstrated  to  be  of  en- 
tirely subordinate  import — opinions,  often,  which  those  who 
originally  framed  them  had  no  reason  to  be  proud  of,  because 
they  had  no  vital  significance. 

When  we  find,  coming  squarely  down  upon  the  facts,  what 
cheap  stuff  both  our  orthodoxy  and  our  heterodoxy  are  made 
of;  when  we  see  how  little  they  are  the  proper  objects  of  per- 
sonal and  sectarian  pride ;  when  we  apprehend  how  little  they 
have  to  do  with  character,  and  how  much  they  have  to  do  with 
dissension  and  all  uncharitableness ;  how  childish  they  make 
us,  how  sensitive  to  fault-finding  and  criticism;  how  they 
narrow  and  dwarf  us,  how  they  pervert  us  from  the  grander 
and  more  vital  issues,  we  may  well  be  ashamed  of  ourselves, 
and  trample  our  pride  of  opinion  in  the  dust.  We  shall  find, 
too,  in  this  abandonment  of  our  pride,  a  basis  of  universal 
charity, — cheap,  and  not  the  best,  but  broad  enough  for  pinched 
feet  and  thin  bodies  to  stand  upon.  If  we  inherit  our  opinions 
from  parents  and  guardians  and  circumstances,  and  recognize 
the  fact  that  the  great  world  around  us  get  their  opinions  in 
the  same  way,  we  shall  naturally  be  more  able  to  see  the  life 
that  underlies  opinion  everywhere,  and  to  find  ourselves  in 
sympathy  with  it.  We  heard  from  the  pulpit  recently  the 
statement  that  when  the  various  branches  of  the  Christian 
Church  shall  become  more  careful  to  note  the  points  of  sym- 
pathy between  each  other  than  the  points  of  difference,  the 
cause  of  Christian  unity  will  be  incalculably  advanced;  and 
that  statement  was  the  inspiring  word  of  which  the  present 
article  was  born. 


2  !  6  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

We  can  never  become  careless,  or  comparatively  careless, 
of  our  points  of  difference,  until  we  learn  what  wretched  stuff 
they  are  made  of — that  these  points  of  difference  reside  in 
opinions  acquired  at  no  cost  at  all,  and  that  they  often  rise  no 
higher  in  the  scale  of  value  than  borrowed  prejudices.  So  long 
as  "orthodoxy"  of  opinion  is  more  elaborately  insisted  on  in 
the  pulpit  than  love  and  purity;  so  long  as  dogmatic  theology 
has  the  lead  of  life;  so  long  as  Christianity  is  made  so  much  a 
thing  of  the  intellect  and  so  subordinately  a  thing  of  the  affec- 
tions, the  points  of  difference  between  the  churches  will  be 
made  of  more  importance  than  the  points  of  sympathy. 
Pride  of  opinion  must  go  out  before  sympathy  can  come  in. 
So  long  as  brains  occupy  the  field,  the  heart  cannot  find  stand- 
ing room.  When  our  creeds  get  to  be  longer  than  the  moral 
law;  when  Christian  men  and  women  are  taken  into,  or  shut 
out  of,  churches  on  account  of  their  opinions  upon  dogmas  that 
do  not  touch  the  vitalities  of  Christian  life  and  character ;  when 
men  of  brains  are  driven  out  of  churches  or  shut  away  from 
them,  because  they  cannot  have  liberty  of  opinion,  and  will  not 
take  a  batch  of  opinions  at  second-hand,  our  pride  of  opinion 
becomes  not  only  ridiculous,  but  criminal ;  and  the  consumma- 
tion of  Christian  unity  is  put  far  off  into  the  better  future. 

With  the  dropping  of  our  pride  of  opinion — which  never  had 
a  respectable  basis  to  stand  upon — our  respect  for  those  who 
are  honestly  trying  to  form  an  opinion  for  themselves  should  be 
greatly  increased.  There  are  men  who  are  honestly  trying  to 
form  an  opinion  of  their  own.  They  are  engaged  in  a  grand 
work.  There  are  but  few  of  us  who  are  able  to  cut  loose  from 
our  belongings.  Alas !  there  are  but  few  of  us  who  are  large 
enough  to  apprehend  the  fact  that  the  opinions  of  these  men 
are  only  worthy  of  respect,  as  opinions.  We  can  look  back 
and  respect  the  opinions  of  our  fathers  and  our  grandfathers, 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


217 


formed  under  the  light  and  among  the  circumstances  of  their 
time,  but  the  authors  of  the  coming  opinions  we  regard  with 
distrust  and  a  degree  of  uncharitableness  most  heartily  to  be 
deplored. 


THE  COMMON  MORALITIES. 

THE  POPULAR  CAPACITY  FOR  SCANDAL. 

One  of  the  most  saddening  and  humiliating  exhibitions 
which  human  nature  ever  makes  of  itself,  is  in  its  greedy  cre- 
dulity touching  all  reports  of  the  misdemeanors  of  good  men. 
If  a  man  stand  high  as  a  moral  force  in  the  community;  if  he 
stand  as  the  rebuker  and  denouncer  of  social  and  political  sin; 
if  he  be  looked  up  to  by  any  considerable  number  of  people  as 
an  example  of  virtue;  if  the  whole  trend  and  power  of  his  life 
be  in  a  high  and  pure  direction;  if  his  personality  and  influence 
render  any  allegation  against  his  character  most  improbable, 
then  most  readily  does  any  such  allegation  find  eager  believers. 
It  matters  not  from  what  source  the  slander  may  come.  Mul- 
titudes will  be  influenced  by  a  report  against  a  good  man's 
character  from  one  who  would  not  be  believed  under  oath  in 
any  matter  involving  the  pecuniary  interest  of  fifty  cents.  The 
slanderer  may  be  notoriously  base — may  be  a  panderer  to  the 
worst  passions  and  the  lowest  vices — may  be  a  shameless  sin- 
ner against  social  virtue — may  be  a  thief,  a  notorious  liar,  a 
drunkard,  a  libertine,  or  a  harlot — all  this  matters  nothing. 
The  engine  that  throws  the  mud  is  not  regarded.  The  white 
object  at  which  the  foul  discharges  are  aimed  is  only  seen;  and 
the  delight  of  the  by-standers  and  lookers-on  is  measured  by 
the  success  of  the  stain  sought  to  be  inflicted. 


THE  COMMON  MORALITIES.  219 

As  between  the  worldling  and  the  man  who  professes  to  be 
guided  and  controlled  by  Christian  motives,  all  this  is  natural 
enough.  The  man  bound  up  in  his  selfish  and  sensual  delights, 
who  sees  a  Christian  fall,  or  hears  the  report  that  he  has  fallen, 
is  naturally  comforted  in  the  belief  that,  after  all,  men  are  alike 
— that  no  one  of  them,  however  much  he  may  profess,  is  better 
than  another.  It  is  quite  essential  to  his  comfort  that  he  cher- 
ish and  fortify  himself  in  this  conviction.  So,  when  any  great 
scandal  arises  in  quarters  where  he  has  found  himself  and  his 
course  of  life  condemned,  he  listens  with  ready  ears,  and  is  un- 
mistakably glad.  We  say  this  is  natural,  however  base  and 
malignant  it  may  be;  but  when  people  Jreputed  good — nay, 
people  professing  to  be  Christian — shrug  their  virtuous  shoul- 
ders and  shake  their  feeble  heads,  while  a  foul  scandal  touches 
vitally  the  character  of  one  of  their  own  number,  and  menaces 
the  extinguishment  of  an  influence,  higher  or  humbler,  by  which 
the  world  is  made  better,  we  hang  our  heads  with  shame,  or 
raise  them  with  indignation.  If  such  a  thing  as  this  is  natural, 
it  proves  just  one  thing,  viz.:  that  these  men  are  hypocrites. 
There  is  no  man,  Christian  or  Pagan,  who  can  rejoice  in  the 
faintest  degree  over  the  reputed  fall  of  any  other  man  from 
recitude,  without  being  at  heart  a  scamp.  All  this  readiness 
to  believe  evil  of  others,  especially  of  those  who  have  been  re- 
puted to  be  eminently  good,  is  an  evidence  of  conscious  weak- 
ness under  temptation,  or  of  conscious  proclivity  to  vice  that 
finds  comfort  in  eminent  companionship. 

There  is  no  better  test  of  purity  and  true  goodness  than 
reluctance  to  think  evil  of  one's  neighbor,  and  absolute  in- 
capacity to  believe  an  evil  report  about  good  men  except  upon 
the  most  trustworthy  testimony.  Alas,  that  this  large  and 
lovely  charity  is  so  rare !  But  it  is  only  with  those  who  pos- 
sess this  charity  that  men  accused  of  sins  against  society  have 


220  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

an  equal  chance  with  those  accused,  under  the  forms  of  law, 
of  crime.  Every  man  brought  to  trial  for  crime  is  presumed 
to  be  innocent  until  he  is  proved  to  be  guilty;  but,  with  the 
world  at  large,  every  man  slandered  is  presumed  to  be  guilty 
until  he  proves  himself  to  be  innocent ;  and  even  then  it  takes 
the  liberty  of  doubting  the  testimony.  Every  man  who  re- 
joices in  a  scandal  thereby  advertises  the  fact  of  his  own  un- 
trust worthiness ;  and  every  man  who  is  pained  by  it,  and 
refuses  to  be  impressed  by  it,  unconsciously  reveals  his  own 
purity.  He  cannot  believe  a  bad  thing  done  by  one  whom  he 
regards  as  a  good  man,  simply  because  he  knows  he  would 
not  do  it  himself.  He  gives  credit  to  others  for  the  virtue 
that  is  consciously  in  his  own  possession,  while  the  base  men 
around  him,  whether  Christian  in  name  or  not,  withhold  that 
credit  because  they  cannot  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  virtue 
of  which  they  are  consciously  empty.  When  the  Master 
uttered  the  words,  "Let  him  that  is  without  sin  among  you 
first  cast  a  stone  at  her,"  he  knew  that  none  but  conscious 
delinquents  would  have  the  disposition  to  do  so ;  and  when, 
under  this  rebuke,  every  fierce  accuser  retired  overwhelmed, 
He,  the  sinless,  wrote  the  woman's  crime  in  the  sand  for  the 
heavenly  rains  to  efface.  If  He  could  do  this  in  a  case  of 
guilt  not  disputed,  it  certainly  becomes  his  followers  to  stand 
together  around  every  one  of  their  number  whom  malice  or 
revenge  assails  with  slanders  to  which  his  or  her  whole  life 
gives  the  lie. 

In  a  world  full  of  influences  and  tendencies  to  evil,  where 
every  good  force  is  needed,  and  needs  to  be  jealously  cher- 
ished and  guarded,  there  is  no  choicer  treasure  and  no  more 
beneficent  power  than  a  sound  character.  This  is  not  only  the 
highest  result  of  all  the  best  forces  of  our  civilization,  but  it  is 
the  builder  of  those  forces  in  society  and  the  State.  Society 


THE  COMMON  MORALITIES.  22I 

cannot  afford  to  have  it  wasted  or  destroyed  j  and  its  instinct 
of  self-preservation  demands  that  it  shall  not  be  suffered. 
There  is  nothing  so  sensitive  and  nothing  so  sacred  as  charac- 
ter; and  every  tender  charity,  and  loyal  friendship,  and  chival- 
rous affection,  and  manly  sentiment  and  impulse,  ought  to  in- 
trench themselves  around  every  true  character  in  the  com-  * 
munity  so  thoroughly  that  a  breath  of  calumny  shall  be  as 
harmless  as  an  idle  wind.  If  they  cannot  do  this,  then  no 
man  is  safe  who  refuses  to  make  terms  with  the  devil,  and  he 
is  at  liberty  to  pick  his  victims  where  he  will. 

PROFESSIONAL  MORALS. 

No  man  has  a  right  to  practice  his  profession  in  such  a 
way  as  to  encourage  personal  vice  in  those  whom  he  serves, 
or  wrong-doing  towards  individuals  and  the  community.  This 
is  a  very  simple  proposition,  to  which  no  respectable  man  in 
any  profession  will  presume  to  make  an  objection.  If  there  ever 
lived  a  professional  villain  of  whom  a  professional  vilifier  could 
say:  "This  is  he  who  made  it  safe  to  murder,  and  of  whose 
health  thieves  inquired  before  they  began  to  steal,"  he  could 
only  be  saved  from  universal  execration  by  a  natural  doubt  of 
the  justice  of  the  sarcasm  and  the  candor  of  its  author.  The- 
oretically, there  are  no  differences  among  decent  men  on  this 
subject,  when  it  is  placed  before  the  mind  in  this  way.  It  is 
one  of  those  simple,  self-evident  propositions,  about  which  no 
man  would  think  of  arguing  for  an  instant.  Up  to  the  bar  of 
this  proposition  one  can  bring  every  act  of  his  professional 
life,  and  decide  for  himself  whether  it  be  legitimate  and  mor- 
ally good.  We  repeat  it, — No  man  has  a  right  to  practice  his 
profession  in  such  a  way  as  to  encourage  personal  vice  in  those 
whom  he  serves,  or  wrong-doing  towards  individuals  and  the 
community. 


222  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

The  great  cities  are  full  of  men  who  have  achieved  remark- 
able skill  in  the  treatment  of  a  certain  class  of  diseases,  and 
other  dangerous  or  inconvenient  consequences  of  a  bestial 
social  vice.  No  matter  how  often  their  patients  may  approach 
them,  or  how  vile  they  may  be,  or  how  successfully  they  may 
scheme  against  the  peace  and  purity  of  society,  or  what  form 
the  consequences  of  their  sin  may  assume,  these  professional 
men  take  their  fee,  and  do  what  they  can  to  shield  the  sinners 
from  the  effect  of  their  crimes.  Whatever  they  may  be  able  to 
do  professionally  to  make  it  safe  for  men  and  women  to  tram- 
ple upon  the  laws  of  social  purity,  they  do  and  constantly 
stand  ready  to  do.  Yet  these  men  have  a  defense  of  them- 
selves which  enables  them  to  hold  their  heads  up.  They  are 
physicians.  It  is  their  business  to  treat  disease  in  whatever 
form  it  may  present  itself.  It  would  be  impertinent  in  them 
to  inquire  into  the  life  of  those  who  come  to  them  for  advice. 
They  are  not  the  keepers  of  other  men's  consciences.  They 
are  men  of  science  and  not  of  morals.  It  is  their  business  to 
cure  disease  by  the  speediest  and  best  methods  they  know, 
and  not  to  inquire  into  character,  or  be  curious  about  the  in- 
direct results  of  their  skill.  Such  would  be  their  defense,  or 
the  line  of  their  defense ;  yet,  if  it  can  be  seen  or  shown  that 
their  professional  life  encourages  vice  in  the  community,  by  the 
constant  shield  which  it  offers  against  the  consequences  of 
vice,  the  defense  amounts  to  nothing.  If  a  debauchee  or  a 
sensualist  of  any  sort  finds  impunity  for  his  excesses  in  the 
professional  skill  of  his  physician,  and  relies  upon  that  skill  to 
shield  him  from  the  consequences  of  his  sins,  be  they  what 
they  may,  his  physician  becomes  the  partner  of  his  guilt  for 
gold,  and  a  professional  pander  to  his  appetites.  He  may  find 
professional  brethren  to  defend  him,  but  before  the  unsophist- 
icated moral  sense  of  the  world  he  will  be  a  degraded  man, 
and  stand  condemned. 


THE  COMMON  MORALITIES. 


223 


There  are  such  men  in  the  world  as  professional  pardoners 
of  sin.  There  are  men  in  priestly  robes  who,  on  the  confes- 
sion of  a  penitent,  or  one  who  assumes  the  position  of  a  peni- 
tent, release  him  professionally  from  the  consequences  of  his 
misdeeds.  Unless  history  has  lied,  there  have  been  men 
among  these  to  whom  the  vicious  have  gone  for  shrift  and 
pardon  for  a  consideration,  and  received  what  they  went  for, 
on  every  occasion  of  overt  crime  when  the  voice  of  conscience 
in  their  superstitious  souls  would  not  be  still,  and  who  have 
retired  from  the  confessional  ready  for  more  crimes,  from 
whose  spiritual  consequences  they  have  intended  and  expected 
to  find  relief  in  the  same  way.  It  is  not  necessary  to  charge 
such  desecration  of  the  priestly  office  upon  any  one.  We 
have  no  reason  to  believe  that  in  this  country  such  things  are 
common ;  but  we  know  that  priests  are  human,  and  that  there 
have  been  bad  and  mercenary  men  among  them.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  suppose  cases  like  this,  to  see  that  a  priest  may, 
in  the  exercise  of  his  professional  functions,  become  the  part- 
ner of  the  criminal  in  his  crimes,  a  friend  and  protector  of 
vice,  and  a  foe  to  the  purity  and  good  order  of  society.  He 
can  set  up  his  professional  defense,  and  find  professional  de- 
fenders, perhaps;  but  any  child,  capable  of  comprehending 
the  question,  will  decide  that  he  is  degraded  and  disgraced. 

What  is  true,  or  may  be  true,  of  these  professions,  is  true 
of  any  profession.  Nothing  is  more  notorious  than  that  there 
are  lawyers  who  are  public  nuisances — who  encourage  litiga- 
tion, who  are  universally  relied  upon  by  criminals  for  the  de- 
fense of  crime,  and  whose  reputation  and  money  have  indeed 
been  won  by  their  ability  to  clear  the  guilty  from  the  conse- 
quences of  their  wrong-doing.  Between  these  low  extremes 
of  professional  prostitution  and  the  high  ground  occupied  by 
the  great  mass  of  legal  men,  there  are  many  points  where  self- 


224  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

interest,  united  with  incomplete  knowledge,  is  powerful  to  lead 
the  best  minds  into  doubtful  ways,  and  engage  them  in  the 
support  of  doubtful  causes  or  the  defense  of  doubtful  men. 
It  is  freely  admitted  that  the  best  lawyer  may  find  questions 
of  personal  morality  and  professional  propriety  in  his  practice 
that  are  hard  to  settle,  and  that  may  conscientiously  be  settled 
incorrectly;  but  no  lawyer  needs  to  question  whether  it  is 
right  for  him  to  strengthen  the  position  of  a  notorious  scamp, 
especially  if  that  scamp  is  known  to  be  a  corrupter  of  the  law 
by  all  the  means  in  his  power,  and  a  wholesale  plunderer  of 
the  people. 

LET  Us  BE  VIRTUOUS. 

The  devil  is  a  sharp  financier.  He  manages  to  make  good 
people,  or  people  who  think  they  are  good,  pay  the  dividends 
on  all  the  stock  he  issues,  and  cash  all  his  premiums  on  rascal- 
ity. Sometimes,  however,  the  good  people  get  tired,  and, 
taking  on  a  fit  of  severe  virtue,  protest.  In  the  city  of  New 
York  there  was  a  Committee  of  Seventy  operating  against 
seventy  rogues  multiplied  by  seven,  and  all  the  city  was  in  a 
state  of  fierce  indignation.  It  was  found  that  the  public  purse 
had  been  shamelessly  robbed — that  the  work  had  been  going 
on  for  years — and  that  the  robbers  were  men  of  power,  both 
in  and  out  of  office.  We  say  this  was  found  to  be  the  case, 
but  we  do  not  mean  to  intimate  that  the  finding  was  a  new 
one.  No  one  was  any  more  certain  then  than  he  had  been  for 
years  that  the  tax-payers  of  the  city  were  systematically 
robbed.  It  was  just  as  well  known  then  as  it  is  now,  that 
men  in  public  office  were  making  fortunes  illegitimately. 
The  figures  which  The  Times  and  its  coadjutors  published 
did  not  add  to  the  popular  conviction  in  this  matter.  They 
simply  showed  how  much  the  public  had  been  robbed ;  and  it 


THE  COMMON  MORALITIES. 


225 


was  the  magnitude  of  the  figures  that  roused  the  moral  indig- 
nation. The  people  knew  their  rulers  were  doing  wrong,  but 
they  were  too  busy  with  making  money  to  interfere.  They 
knew  they  were  stealing  something,  but  thought  it  best  to  per- 
mit the  theft ;  and  they  only  became  overwhelmingly  conscien- 
tious when  they  found  that  the  rogues  were  determined  to  have 
their  last  dollar.  Then  they  grew  wide  awake,  grasped  their 
pockets,  cried  "  stop  thief!  "  and  became  virtuous. 

Shall  we — must  we — confess  that  such  enormous  frauds  and 
robberies  as  these  which  we  notice  are  only  rendered  possible 
by  a  low  condition  of  the  public  morality  ?  Must  we  confess 
that  only  in  New  York  city  such  things  have  happened  ? 
Must  we  confess  that  this  shocking  and  unparalleled  mal- 
feasance is  only  an  outcropping  of  a  universally  underlying 
baseness,  and  that  there  are  ten  thousand  men  in  New  York 
city  alone  who  would  have  been  glad  to  do  exactly  what  our 
rulers  have  done,  and  would  have  done  it  with  the  opportunity  ? 
Think  ye  that  these  rogues  are  sinners  above  all  Galileans  ? 
Let  us  acknowlege  the  truth.  They  were  proceeded  against 
not  because  they  offended  the  public  conscience,  not  because 
they  did  wrong,  not  because  they  were  the  enemies  of  public 
virtue,  not  because  their  example  demoralized  and  debauched 
our  children,  not  because  they  shamed  and  disgraced  us  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world,  not  because  they  stole  from  us  constantly, 
and  not  because  they  used  us  as  clean  means  to  dirty  ends, 
for  all  these  had  they  been  doing  for  years,  with  our  knowl- 
edge and  consent ;  but  because  they  had  stolen  so  enormously 
that  we  were  in  danger  of  being  ruined.  This  roused  us,  and 
we  found  that  we  had  a  conscience,  carried  for  convenience  in 
the  bottom  of  our  pockets,  and  only  stirred  by  thieves  who 
reached  very  far  down. 

It  is  time  that  a  community  in  which   such  robberies  are 


226  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

possible  were  alarmed  for  itself.  We  are  overrun  by  men  of 
easy  virtue.  Picking  and  stealing  are  going  on  everywhere. 
The  community  is  full  of  men  who  are  anxious  to  make  money 
without  earning  it.  They  fill  the  lobby  at  the  capitol,  they 
fasten  in  various  capacities  upon  railroad  corporations,  they 
hang  upon  insurance  companies,  they  seek  for  sinecures  every- 
where. Their  influence  is  intolerable,  yet  they  are  everywhere 
tolerated.  They  regard  it  as  no  wrong  by  whatsoever  and  in 
what  way  soever  they  may  be  benefited  by  a  corporation. 
All  means  are  fair  which  take  money  from  a  corporation. 
Stockholders  are  systematically  robbed,  and  have  been  for 
many  years,  yet  there  is  not  moral  force  and  earnestness  enough 
in  the  popular  protest  to  gain  the  slightest  attention,  or  arrest 
the  passage  of  the  plunder  for  a  moment.  There  is  moral 
rottenness  in  every  quarter.  The  "  dead-head  "  is  everywhere, 
and  the  dead-heart  invariably  keeps  it  company. 

But  let  us  rejoice  that  we  have  at  last  a  protest.  Ay,  let  us 
rejoice  that  a  few  have  had  the  opportunity  to  do  what  many 
would  be  glad  to  do  if  they  had  the  opportunity,  and  thus 
learn  what  a  wilderness  of  wolves  our  apathy  and  toleration 
have  sheltered  and  permitted  to  multiply,  until  our  lives  and 
fortunes  are  in  danger.  The  popular  greed  for  money,  coupled 
with  low  morality,  runs  just  as  directly  into  robbery  as  a  river 
tends  to  the  sea.  Opportunity  is  all  that  is  needed  to  prove 
how  universal  and  powerful  is  the  propensity  to  steal.  What 
the  better  elements  of  society  need  is  union  and  determination 
in  the  effort  to  shut  from  rogues  this  opportunity.  No  bad 
man  is  fit  for  any  office,  and  the  good  men  of  a  city  who  do 
not  think  it  worth  while  to  unite  for  the  simple  purpose  of  be- 
ing ruled  by  good  men,  have  none  but  themselves  to  blame  if 
they  are  robbed.  Indeed,  by  refusing  to  unite  for  this  purpose, 
they  become  participators  in  the  crimes  which  they  condemn. 


THE  COMMON  MORALITIES.  227 

AMERICAN  HONESTY. 

Any  man  who  has  traveled  in  Europe  knows  what  the 
temptation  is  to  buy  and  bring  home  articles  that  can  be  pro- 
cured more  cheaply  there  than  in  America,  under  the  expec- 
tation that  the  customs  officers  will  let  them  in  free  of  duty ; 
and  every  observer  knows  that  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of 
goods  are  imported  annually  in  this  way  that  pay  no  revenue 
to  the  Government.  It  is  notorious,  too,  that  many  of  our 
citizens  go  to  Canada  to  buy  clothing,  and  wear  it  home  for 
the  purpose  of  cheating  the  Government.  Men  of  wealth 
and  luxuriously  living  women,  who  would  scorn  to  deal  dis- 
honorably by  their  neighbors,  rejoice  in  the  privilege  of  cheat- 
ing their  own  Government,  and  boast  of  their  success  in  doing 
so.  They  do  not  even  suspect  that  they  are  doing  wrong  in 
this  thing.  They  have  no  idea  that  they  are  acting  meanly  or 
dishonestly.  They  look  upon  this  genteel  kind  of  smuggling 
as  a  smart  and  harmless  trick,  and  display  to  their  friends  the 
results  of  their  shrewdness  with  pride  and  self-gratulation. 
We  may  find  among  these  smugglers  thousands  who  look  upon 
the  corruptions  of  politicians  with  indignation ;  yet  not  one  of 
them  could  succeed  in  his  smuggling  enterprises  save  through 
the  unfaithfulness  of  public  officers,  whom  they  reward  for 
their  treachery  with  a  gift. 

Would  it  not  be  well  for  us  to  remember,  before  we  condemn 
the  dishonesty  which  is  so  prevalent  in  the  public  service,  that 
the  politicians  and  office-holders  are,  on  the  whole,  as  honest 
as  the  people  are  ?  All  that  either  of  them  seem  to  need  is  a 
temptation  to  dishonesty  to  make  them  dishonest.  The 
office-holder  takes  advantage  of  his  position  to  cheat  his 
Government,  and  every  genteel  smuggler  who  lands  from  a 
European  vessel,  or  crosses  the  Canada  line,  does  the  same 
thing  from  the  same  motive.  The  radical  trouble,  with  people 


228  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

and  politicians  alike,  is  the  entertainment  of  the  idea  that 
stealing  from  the  Government  is  not  stealing  at  all — that  a 
man  has  a  right  to  get  out  of  his  Government  all  that  he  can 
without  detection.  They  have  not  only  brought  their  con- 
sciences into  harmony  with  this  idea,  but  they  willfully  -break 
the  law  of  the  land.  In  short,  for  the  sake  of  a  trifling  ad- 
vantage in  the  purchase  of  goods,  they  are  willing  to  deceive, 
to  tempt  public  officers  to  forswear  themselves,  to  break  the 
laws  of  their  country,  and  to  deprive  the  Government  that 
protects  them  of  a  portion  of  the  means  by  which  it  sustains 
itself  in  that  service. 

It  is  a  startling  fact  that  there  is  never  a  train  wrecked  with- 
out pickpockets  on  board,  who  immediately  proceed  to  plun- 
der the  helpless  passengers.  These  may  not  be  professionals. 
They  may  never  have  picked  a  pocket  in  their  lives  before, 
but  the  temptation  develops  the  thief.  There  is  never  a  battle 
fought  in  any  place  where  there  are  not  men  ready  to  plunder 
the  slain.  The  devil,  or  the  wild  beast,  has  been  there  all  the 
time,  only  waiting  for  an  invitation  to  come  out.  Men  look 
on  and  see  a  great  city  badly  managed — see  mayors  and  alder- 
men and  politicians  engaged  in  stealing  and  growing  rich  on 
corruption ;  but  these  men  find  thousands  ready  on  all  sides 
to  engage  in  corrupt  contracts,  to  render  false  bills  of  service, 
and  to  aid  them  in  all  rascally  ways  to  fill  their  pockets  with 
spoil.  The  men  whom  we  send  to  our  Legislatures  to  repre- 
sent us  seem  quite  willing  to  become  the  tools  of  corrupt  men, 
and  it  is  marvelous  to  see  with  what  joy  the  residents  of  any 
locality  receive  the  patronage  of  the  Government,  whether 
needed  or  not.  That  member  of  Congress  who  secures  to  his 
district  the  expenditure  of  Government  money  for  the  building 
of  any  "  improvement,"  no  matter  how  absurdly  unnecessary, 
does  much  to  secure  his  re-election.  There  is  no  denying  the 


THE  COMMON  MORALITIES.  22O 

fact  that  the  people  are  just  as  fond  of  spoil  as  the  politicians 
are. 

We  find  fault  with  the  management  of  corporations,  but  all 
our  corporations  have  virtuous  stockholders.  Did  anybfrdy 
ever  hear  of  these  stockholders  relinquishing  any  advantage 
derived  from  dishonest  management  ?  Do  they  protest  against 
receiving  dividends  of  scrip  coming  from  watered  stock  ?  Do 
they  not  shut  their  eyes  to  "  irregularities,"  so  long  as  they  are 
profitable,  and  do  not  compromise  their  interests  before  the 
law?  There  is  not  a  corporation  of  any  importance  in  America 
which  is  not  regarded  as  a  fair  subject  for  plunder  by  a  large 
portion  of  the  community.  If  a  piece  of  land  is  wanted  by  a 
corporation,  it  is  placed  at  once  at  the  highest  price.  Any 
price  that  can  be  got  out  of  a  corporation  for  anything  is  con- 
sidered a  fair  price.  Corporations  are  the  subjects  of  the 
pettiest  and  absurdest  claims  from  all  sorts  of  men.  Men 
hang  upon  some  of  them  like  leeches,  sucking  their  very  life 
blood  out  of  them. 

And  now,  what  do  all  these  facts  lead  to  ?  Simply  to  the 
conclusion  that  dishonesty  in  our  Government  and  dishonesty 
in  all  our  corporate  concerns  is  based  on  the  loose  ideas  of 
honesty  entertained  by  our  people.  We  have  somehow 
learned  to  make  a  difference  between  those  obligations  which 
we  owe  to  one  another  as  men,  and  those  which  we  owe  to 
the  Government  and  to  corporations-.  These  ideas  are  not  a 
whit  more  prevalent  among  office-holders  and  directors  than 
they  are  among  voters  and  stockholders.  Men  are  not  ma- 
terially changed  by  being  clothed  with  office  and  power.  The 
radically  honest  man  is  just  as  honest  in  office  as  he  is  out  of 
it.  Corrupt  men  are  the  offspring  of  a  corrupt  society.  We 
all  need  straightening  up.  The  lines  of  our  morality  all  need 
to  be  drawn  tighter.  There  is  not  a  man  who  is  willing  to 


230 


E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


smuggle,  and  to  see  customs  officers  betray  their  trust  while  he 
does  it ;  willing  to  receive  the  results  of  the  sharp  practice  of 
directors  of  corporations  in  which  he  has  an  interest ;  willing 
to  receive  the  patronage  of  the  Government  in  the  execution 
of  schemes  not  based  in  absolute  necessity;  willing  to  take  an 
exorbitant  price  for  a  piece  of  property  sold  to  the  Govern- 
ment or  to  a  corporation,  who  is  fit  to  be  trusted  with  office. 
When  we  have  said  this,  we  have  given  the  explanation  of  all 
our  public  and  corporate  corruption,  and  shown  why  it  is  so 
difficult  to  get  any  great  trust  managed  honestly.  All  official 
corruption  is  based  on  popular  corruption — loose  ideas  of 
honesty  as  they  are  held  by  the  popular  mind ;  and  we  can 
hope  for  no  reform  until  we  are  better  based  as  a  people  in  the 
everlasting  principles  of  equity  and  right-doing.  If  we  would 
have  the  stream  clear,  we  must  cleanse  the  fountain. 


WOMAN. 

OWNERSHIP  IN  WOMEN. 

A  man  was  recently  hanged  in  Massachusetts  for  taking 
vengeance  on  one  who  had  practically  disputed  his  property 
in  a  girl.  The  man  was  a  brute,  of  course,  but  he  had  an 
opinion  that  a  girl  who  had  given  herself  to  him,  in  the  com- 
pletest  surrender  that  a  woman  can  make,  was  in  some  sense 
his — that  her  giving  herself  to  another  involved  his  dishonor — 
and  that  his  property  in  her  was  to  be  defended  to  the  ex- 
tremity of  death.  A  prominent  newspaper,  while  recording 
the  facts  of  the  case,  takes  the  occasion  to  say  that  this  idea 
of  ownership  in  women  is  the  same  barbarism  out  of  which 
grow  the  evils  and  wrongs  that  the  "woman  movement"  is 
intended  to  remove.  If  we  were  to  respond  that  ownership 
in  women,  only  blindly  apprehended  as  it  was  by  our  brutal 
gallows-bird,  is  the  one  thing  that  saves  us  from  the  wildest 
doctrines  and  practices  of  the  free-lovers,  and  is  one  of  the 
strongest  conservative  forces  of  society,  it  is  quite  likely  that 
we  should  be  misunderstood;  but  we  shall  run  the  risk,  and 
make  the  assertion. 

There  is  an  instinct  in  the  heart  of  every  woman  which  tells 
her  that  she  is  his  to  whom  she  gives  herself,  and  his  alone, — 
an  instinct  which  bids  her  cling  to  him  while  she  lives  or  he 
lives — which  identifies  her  life  with  his — which  makes  of  him 


232 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


and  her  twain,  one  flesh.  When  this  gift  is  once  made  to 
a  true  man,  he  recognizes  its  significance.  He  is  to  provide 
for  her  that  which  she  cannot  provide  for  herself;  he  is  to 
protect  her  to  the  extent  of  his  power;  she  is  to  share  his 
home,  and  to  be  his  closest  companion.  His  ownership  in  her 
covers  his  most  sacred  possession,  and  devolves  upon  him  the 
gravest  duties.  If  it  were  otherwise,  why  is  it  that  a  woman 
who  gives  herself  away  unworthily  feels,  when  she  finds  her- 
self deceived,  that  she  is  lost  ? — that  she  has  parted  with  her- 
self to  one  who  does  not  recognize  the  nature  of  the  gift,  and 
that  she  who  ought  to  be  owned,  and,  by  being  owned,  hon- 
ored, is  disowned  and  dishonored  ?  There  is  no  true,  pure 
woman  living  who,  when  she  gives  herself  away,  does  not 
rejoice  in  the  ownership  which  makes  her  forever  the  property 
of  one  man.  She  is  not  his  slave  to  be  tasked  and  abused, 
because  she  is  the  gift  of  love  and  not  the  purchase  of  money; 
but  she  is  his,  in  a  sense  in  which  she  cannot  be  another  man's 
without  dishonor  to  him  and  damnation  to  herself. 

Our  gallows-bird  was,  in  his  brutal  way,  right.  If  he  had 
been  living  in  savage  society,  without  laws,  and  with  the 
necessity  of  guarding  his  own  treasures,  his  act  would  have 
been  looked  upon  as  one  of  heroism  by  all  the  beauties  and 
braves  of  his  tribe.  The  weak  point  in  his  case  was,  that  his 
ownership  in  what  he  was  pleased  to  call  "his  girl"  was  not 
established  according  to  the  laws  under  which  he  lived.  He 
was  not  legally  married,  and  had  acquired  no  rights  under  the 
law  to  be  defended.  What  he  was  pleased  to  consider  his 
rights  were  established  contrary  to  law,  and  he  could  not 
appeal  to  law  for  their  defense.  He  took  the  woman  to  him- 
self contrary  to  law,  he  defended  his  property  in  her  by  mur- 
der, and  he  was  hanged.  He  was  served  right.  Hemp  would 
grow  on  a  rock  for  such  as  he  anywhere  in  the  world.  There 


WOMAN.  233 

is  no  cure  for  the  man  who  seduces  and  slays,  but  a  broken 
neck. 

There  is  nothing  more  menacing  in  the  aspect  of  social 
affairs  in  this  country  than  the  effort  among  a  certain  class  of 
reformers  to  break  up  the  identity  of  interest  and  feeling 
among  men  and  women.  Men  are  alluded  to  with  sneeis  and 
blame,  as  being  opposed  to  the  interests  of  women,  as  using 
the  power  in  their  hands — a  power  usurped — to  maintain  their 
own  predominance  at  the  expense  of  woman's  rights  and 
woman's  well-being.  Marriage,  under  this  kind  of  teaching, 
becomes  a  compact  of  convenience,  into  which  men  and 
women  may  enter,  each  party  taking  along  the  personal  in- 
dependence enjoyed  in  a  single  state,  with  separate  business 
interests  and  separate  pursuits.  In  other  words,  marriage  is 
regarded  simply  as  the  legal  companionship  of  two  beings  of 
opposite  sexes,  who  have  their  own  independent  pursuits,  with 
which  the  bond  is  not  permitted  to  interfere.  It  contemplates 
no  identification  of  life  and  destiny.  The  man  holds  no  own- 
ership in  woman  which  gives  him  a  right  to  a  family  of  chil- 
dren and  a  life  devoted  to  the  sacred  duties  of  motherhood. 
The  man  who  expects  such  a  sacrifice  at  the  hands  of  his  wife 
is  regarded  as  a  tyrant  or  a  brute.  Women  are  to  vote,  and 
trade,  and  practice  law,  and  preach,  and  go  to  Congress,  and 
do  everything  that  a  man  does,  irrespective  of  the  marriage 
bonds.  Women  are  to  be  just  as  free  to  do  anything  outside 
of  their  homes  as  men  are.  They  are  to  choose  their  careers 
and  pursue  them  with  just  as  little  reference  to  the  internal 
administration  of  their  families  as  their  husbands  exercise. 
This  is  the  aim  and  logical  end  of  all  the  modern  doctrines 
concerning  woman's  rights.  The  identification  of  woman 
with  man,  as  the  basis  of  the  institution  of  the  family,  is 
scoffed  at.  Any  ownership  in  woman,  that  comes  of  the  gift 


2  34  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

of  herself  to  him,  and  the  assumption  of  the  possession  by 
him,  with  its  life-long  train  of  obligations  and  duties,  is  con- 
temned. It  i's  assumed  that  interests  which  are,  and  must 
forever  remain,  identical,  are  opposed  to  each  other.  Men 
and  women  are  pitted  against  each  other  in  a  struggle  for 
power. 

Well,  let  it  be  understood,  then,  that  men  are  opposed  to 
these  latter-day  doctrines,  and  that  they  will  remain  so.  They 
are  determined  that  the  identity  of  interest  between  men  and 
women  shall  never  be  destroyed ;  that  the  sacred  ownership 
in  women,  bestowed  in  all  true  marriage,  shall  never  be  sur- 
rendered; that  the  family  shall  be  maintained,  and  that  the 
untold  millions  of  true  women  in  the  world  who  sympathize 
with  them  shall  be  protected  from  the  false  philosophies  and 
destructive  policies  of  their  few  misguided  sisters,  who  seek  to 
turn  the  world  upside  down.  Political  conventions  may  throw 
their  sops  to  clamoring  reformers,  but  they  mean  nothing  by 
it.  They  never  have  redeemed  a  pledge  to  these  reformers 
and  we  presume  they  have  never  intended  to  do  so.  They 
expect  the  matter  to  blow  over,  and,  if  we  do  not  mistake  the 
signs  of  the  times,  it  is  rapidly  blowing  over,  with  more  or  less 
thunder  and  with  very  little  rain.  In  the  meantime,  if  the 
discussions  that  have  grown  out  of  these  questions  have  tended 
to  open  a  broader  field  to  woman's  womanly  industry,  or  ob- 
literated unjust  laws  from  the  statute-book,  let  every  man  re- 
joice. No  good  can  come  to  woman  that  does  not  benefit 
him,  and  no  harm  that  does  not  hurt  him.  Humanity  is  one, 
and  man  and  woman  rise  or  fall  together. 

THREE  PIECES  OF  THE  WOMAN  QUESTION. 

FIRST  PIECE. 

A  survey  of  the  States  of  the  Union,  and  of  the  Union 
ander  the  general  government,  will  show  to  any  candid  ob- 


WOMAN.  235 

server  that  the  legislation  of  the  country,  in  all  its  departments, 
is  above,  rather  than  below,  the  average  moral  sense  of  the 
nation.  The  fact  is  seen  in  the  inadequate  execution  of  the 
laws.  There  are  many  statutes  relating  to  public  morals  and 
civil  policy  which  appear  to  be  the  offspring  of  the  highest  and 
purest  principles,  that  stand  as  dead  letters  in  State  and  na- 
tional law,  simply  because  the  average  moral  sense  of  the 
people  does  not  demand  and  enforce  their  execution.  They 
are  enacted  through  the  influence  or  by  the  power  of  men 
of  exceptional  virtue,  who  find,  to  their  sorrow,  that  while  it  is 
easy  to  make  good  laws,  it  is  difficult,  and  often  impossible,  to 
execute  them.  So  far  as  we  know,  it  has  never  occurred 
to  them  to  call  for  the  assistance  of  women  in  the  execution. 
of  these  laws,  nor  has  it  occurred  to  women  to  offer  their 
assistance  to  them  for  this  end.  One  or  two  questions,  sug- 
gested by  the  discussions  of  the  time,  naturally  grow  out 
of  this  statement. 

First : — Is  it  of  any  practical  advantage  to  have  better  laws, 
until  the  average  morality  of  the  people  is  sufficient  to  execute 
those  which  we  have  ? 

Second : — Is  it  right  that  women  should  have  an  equal  or  a 
determining  voice  in  the  enactment  of  laws  which  they  do  not 
propose  to  execute,  which  they  do  not  propose  to  assist  in 
executing,  which  they  could  not  execute  if  they  would,  and 
which  they  expect  men  to  execute  for  them  ? 

Third : — Supposing  that  women  would  give  us  better  laws 
than  we  have  (which  is  not  evident),  what  would  be  the  prac- 
tical advantage  to  them  or  to  us,  so  long  as  they  must  rely 
upon  us  to  execute  them — upon  us,  who  find  it  impossible  to 
enforce  our  own  laws,  some  of  the  best  of  which  are  the  out- 
growth of  the  pure  influence  of  women  in  home  and  social 
life? 


236  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

SECOND   PIECE. 

In  national  and  international  life  there  are  policies  of  action 
and  attitude  to  be  adopted  and  maintained.  These  policies 
sometimes  cost  a  civil  war  for  their  establishment  or  defense, 
and,  not  unfrequently,  a  war  with  related  nations.  It  so  hap- 
pens, in  the  nature  of  the  case,  that  no  single  nation  has  it  in 
its  power  to  abolish  war.  The  only  way  for  a  nation  to  live, 
when  attacked  by  foes  within  or  without,  is  to  fight;  and,  in 
the  present  condition  of  the  world,  a  national  policy  which 
has  not  behind  it  the  power  of  physical  defense  is  as  weak  and 
contemptible  a  thing  as  the  world  holds.  Out  of  this  state- 
ment, which  we  presume  no  one  will  dispute,  there  arise  two 
questions. 

First: — Would  a  lack  of  all  personal  risk  and  responsibility, 
on  the  part  of  those  delegated  to  establish  and  pronounce  the 
policy  of  a  nation,  tend  to  prudent  counsels  and  careful  de- 
cisions ? 

Second ' : — Is  it  right — is  it  kind  and  courteous  to  men — for 
women  to  demand  an  equal  or  a  determining  voice  in  the 
establishment  of  a  national  policy  which  they  do  not  propose 
to  defend,  which  they  do  not  propose  to  assist  in  defending, 
which  they  could  not  defend  if  they  would,  and  which  they 
expect  men  to  defend  for  them  ? 

THIRD   PIECE. 

Mr.  Gleason,  the  Tax  Commissioner  of  Massachusetts, 
recently  reported  to  the  Legislature  of  that  State  that  a  tax  of 
nearly  two  million  dollars  is  paid  annually  by  the  women  of  the 
State  on  property  amounting,  at  a  low  valuation,  to  one  hundred 
and  thirty-two  million  dollars.  The  fact  is  an  interesting  and 
gratifying  one,  in  every  point  of  view.  Naturally  it  is  seized 
upon  by  the  advocates  of  woman-suffrage,  and  brought  promi- 
nently forward  to  assist  in  establishing  woman's  claim  to  the 


WOMAN.  237 

ballot.  The  old  cry  of  "  no  taxation  without  representation  " 
is  renewed,  however  much  or  little  of  essential  justice  may  be 
involved  in  the  phrase.  Well,  if  women  are,  or  ever  have 
been,  taxed  as  women  (which  they  are  not,  and  never  have 
been) ;  if  they  produced  this  wealth,  or  won  it  by  legitimate 
trade  (which  they  did  not) ;  if  the  men  who  produced  it  re- 
ceived their  right  to  the  ballot  by  or  through  it ;  if  nine- 
tenths  of  the  wealth  of  the  State  were  not  in  the  hands  of 
business  men  whose  pursuits  have  specially  fitted  them  to  be 
the  guardians  of  the  wealth  of  the  State;  if  the  counsels  of 
these  tax-paying  women  could  add  wisdom  to  the  wisdom  of 
these  men ;  if  the  men  who  produced  this  wealth,  and  be- 
stowed it  upon  these  women,  did  it  with  distrust  of  the  laws 
enacted  by  men  for  its  protection,  and  with  the  desire  for  the 
social  and  political  revolution  which  woman-suffrage  would 
produce,  in  order  that  it  might  be  better  protected;  if  there 
were  any  complaint  of  inadequate  protection  to  this  property 
on  account  of  its  being  in  the  hands  of  women — if  all  or  any 
one  of  these  suppositions  were  based  in  truth — then  some  sort 
of  a  plea  could  be  set  up  on  Mr.  Gleason's  exhibit  by  those 
who  claim  the  ballot  for  woman.  As  the  facts  are,  we  con- 
fess our  inability  to  find  in  it  any  comfort  or  support  for  those 
who  seek  for  the  revolution  under  consideration.  On  the 
contrary,  we  find  that  the  ballot  as  it  stands  to-day,  with  its 
privileges,  responsibilities,  and  limitations,  secures  to  woman 
complete  protection  in  the  enjoyment  of  revenues  which  are 
proved  to  be  immense,  all  drawn  from  land  and  sea  by  the 
hands  of  men  whose  largess  testifies  alike  of  their  love  and 
their  munificence. 

WOMEN  IN  THE  COLLEGES. 

We  are  not  among  those  who  fancy  that  there  are  any  re- 
markable social  dangers  connected  with  bringing  the  sexes  to- 


238  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

gather  during  the  processes  of  their  education.  The  question 
of  admitting  women  to  colleges  hitherto  devoted  to  young 
men  has  been,  and  still  is,  under  serious  consideration.  It 
may  be  said  that  if  it  is  really  desirable  that  any  considerable 
number  of  women  should  receive  the  same  education  that  the 
young  men  of  the  colleges  receive,  they  should  have  the  op- 
portunity to  do  so.  It  may  be  said,  too,  that  this  question  of 
the  education  of  women  has  only  an  indirect  relation  to  the 
question  of  woman-suffrage,  and  should  never  be  confounded 
with  it.  "  The  Woman  Question  "  proper  has  no  legitimate 
connection  with  the  question  of  admitting  women  to  the  col- 
leges where  young  men  are  educated.  If  the  studies  and  the 
modes  of  study  of  the  college  are  not  to  be  modified  in  con- 
sequence of  the  admission  of  women,  the  men — teachers  and 
students — need  to  make  no  objection,  The  society  of  women 
will  do  them  good  rather  than  harm.  It  is  certainly  one  of 
the  disadvantages  of  college  and  female  boarding-school  life 
that  it  is  sexually  isolated.  There  is  no  question  that  the  daily 
association  of  the  sexes  when  young,  under  judicious  super- 
vision and  regulation,  is  much  healthier  than  their  separation. 
It  is  better  that  the  sexes  see  each  other  daily  than  to  dream 
of  each  other;  and  either  the  one  or  the  other  they  always  do. 
So,  in  our  judgment,  the  question  is  not  one  mainly  of  social 
health  and  purity.  If  it  is,  then  it  is  settled,  and  calls  for  no 
further  discussion.  It  is  the  universal  testimony  of  teachers, 
so  far  as  we  have  learned,  that  morally  the  sexes  do  well  to- 
gether in  school — do  better,  indeed,  than  when  separated. 
The  association  of  men  and  women  in  a  school  or  college  is 
just  as  safe  and  healthful  as  their  association  in  all  ordinary 
life.  Men  and  women  are  never  shut  away  from  each  other 
for  long  periods  of  time  without  damage  and  disaster.  Im- 
agination is  unduly  excited,  feeling  becomes  morbid,  and  man- 


WOMAN.  239 

ners  are  degraded  by  such  separations ;  and  the  earlier  they 
can  be  dispensed  with  the  better. 

Can  they  be  dispensed  with  altogether?  We  think  not. 
We  have  never  yet  felt  called  upon  to  part  with  our  old  opin- 
ion that  a  man  is  not  a  woman,  and  that  a  woman  is  not  a 
man ;  that,  as  a  consequence,  their  spheres  of  labor  and  office 
differ,  and  that  their  educational  training  should  have  reference 
as  well  to  their  peculiarities  of  constitution  as  to  the  spheres 
of  life  they  are  to  occupy.  Now  if  any  college  is  adapted 
just  as  well  to  the  training  of  young  women  as  of  young  men, 
it  is  well  adapted  to  the  training  of  neither.  If  at  Vassar  and 
Holyoke  women  do  not  have  a  better  chance  than  at  Amherst 
and  Harvard,  Vassar  and  Holyoke  are  grossly  at  fault,  and 
Amherst  and  Harvard  are  anything  but  what  they  pretend  to 
be — first-class  institutions  for  the  training  of  young  men,  to 
lead  the  lives  and  do  the  work  of  men.  If  any  of  these 
young  men's  colleges  are  particularly  desirable  institutions  for 
the  education  of  women,  they  need  reforming,  unless  it  is 
proposed  to  change  them  into  female  seminaries. 

The  claiming  of  places  for  women  in  young  men's  colleges 
as  a  right,  and  the  denunciation  of  their  exclusion  as  a  wrong 
to  woman,  are  the  special  functions  of  fanatics  and  fools. 
There  are  no  rights  and  wrongs  in  the  matter.  It  is  entirely  a 
matter  of  policy  with  regard  to  that  which  is  best,  on  the 
whole,  for  both  young  men  and  young  women.  Granted  that 
morally  they  would  do  good  to  each  other  in  the  college,  as 
they  undoubtedly  do  in  the  primary  and  preparatory  schools ; 
granted  that  they  would  purify  each  other  socially,  and  stimu- 
late each  other  intellectually;  granted  that  such  association 
would  soften  and  simplify  the  manners  of  all  concerned;  the 
facts  still  remain,  that  men  are  not  women,  that  women  are 
not  men,  and  that  for  their  differing  spheres  of  life  and  labor 


240  EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS, 

they  need  a  widely  different  training.  It  certainly  is  not  an 
object  for  society  to  make  women  more  like  men  than  they  are, 
or  in  any  way  to  divert  them  from  a  full  and  fine  development 
of  their  womanhood. 

It  ought  to  be  said,  on  behalf  of  the  women  of  America, 
that  they  have  not,  in  any  considerable  or  influential  numbers, 
demanded  admission  to  the  colleges  which  have  been  specially 
designed  for  the  training  of  young  men.  The  demand  has 
been  made  by  theorists  and  dreamers,  among  men  mostly. 
The  truth  is  that  there  is  no  call  for  these  changes  of  policy 
which  deserves  attention.  The  schools  provided  for  the  educa- 
tion of  women  are  growing  better  and  better  every  year. 
Colleges  for  women  are  springing  up  all  over  the  country,  and 
Vassar  is  unquestionably  a  better  place  for  young  women — all 
sheltered  by  the  single  roof  of  the  institution — than  Amherst 
or  Harvard  or  Yale  or  Union  can  be,  adapted  as  they  all  are 
to  the  wants  of  young  men,  as  well  as  to  their  lack  of  wants. 
There  are  no  wise  fathers  and  mothers  who  would  not  prefer 
Vassar  or  Holyoke  to  Harvard  or  Yale  as  a  training-place  for 
their  daughters.  They  can  reach  any  grade  of  learning  and 
culture  in  these  institutions  which  they  desire,  with  special  ad- 
aptations of  institutional  appointment  and  machinery  to  their 
wants  as  women,  and  special  choice  and  arrangement  of  their 
studies  to  the  womanly  sphere  of  life  they  are  to  occupy.  The 
managers  of  the  colleges  for  men  will  do  what  they  think  best 
in  regard  to  the  proposed  change,  but  we  believe  they  will 
have  the  support  of  the  best  men  and  women  in  every  part  of 
the  country  if  they  decidedly  and  persistently  refuse  to  make  it. 

THE  MORAL  POWER  OF  WOMEN. 

Nothing  in  American  history  has  more  nobly  illustrated  the 
moral  power  of  women,  than  the  notorious  Western  crusade 


WOMAN. 


241 


against  the  vice  of  drinking,  and  the  traffic  upon  which  it  feeds. 
The  exhibition  and  demonstration  of  this  power  are  so  full  of 
suggestion  and  instruction,  both  to  men  and  women,  that  they 
demand  more  than  a  passing  consideration,  especially  in  their 
bearing  upon  some  of  the  most  stirring  questions  of  the  time. 

Why  was  it  in  that  crusade  that  the  hardened  rum-seller 
who,  behind  his  bar,  had  dealt  out  the  liquid  death  to  his 
victims  for  years,  quailed  before  a  band  of  praying,  beseech- 
ing women — women  who,  coming  from  their  comfortable  re- 
tirement, braved  wind  and  storm  and  mud — braved  obloquy 
and  misrepresentation  and  curses,  and  all  the  harsh  obstacles 
that  brutality  could  throw  in  their  path,  to  compass  a  reform 
that  should  keep  their  natural  supporters  and  protectors  pure 
and  prosperous?  Why  was  it  that  men  looking  on  formed 
new  resolutions  of  sobriety,  and  reformed  the  vicious  habits 
of  their  lives  ?  Why  was  it  that  changes  which  involved  the 
destruction  of  a  brutal  business,  and  of  habits  to  which  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  were  wedded  with  all  the  power  of  a  burn- 
ing appetite,  awakened  no  more  violence  than  they  did? 
Why  was  it  that  so  many  good  men,  whose  souls  protested 
against  the  sacrifice  of  ease  and  privacy  which  these  women 
made,  bowed  to  the  movement  as  something  supremely  Chris- 
tian, and,  therefore,  veritably  divine  ? 

First,  of  course,  because  there  was  no  man,  however  brutal, 
who  did  not  know  that  the  women  were  right — that  whisky 
was  a  curse,  not  only  to  those  who  drank  it,  but  to  the  un- 
offending who  did  not  drink  it.  Every  man  felt  that  the 
action  of  the  women  was  an  embodiment  and  expression  of  the 
dictates  of  his  own  conscience.  Approached  in  a  way  which 
disarmed  all  violent  opposition,  with  an  appeal  to  God  and  to 
all  the  manliness  which  he  possessed,  the  vilest  panderer  to  a 
debased  appetite  trembled  not  only  before  the  pure  embodied 
16 


242 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


conscience  without,  but  before  the  answering  conscience 
within.  He  heard  God's  voice  in  the  souls  which  approached 
him,  and  the  same  voice  in  his  own  soul.  There  was  some- 
thing terrible  in  this.  A  mob  which  would  tear  his  house 
down,  a  descent  of  the  officers  of  the  law,  the  threats  of  out- 
raged fathers  and  brothers,  would  only  have  stimulated  his 
opposition,  and  given  him  an  apology  for  continuing  his 
crime ;  but  this  quiet  appeal  to  his  conscience,  by  those  whose 
consciences  he  knew  to  be  pure,  was  awful  to  him. 

Second,  the  mind  of  man  is  so  constituted  as  to  feel  most 
sensitively  the  praise  and  the  blame  of  women.  It  is  hard  for 
any  man  to  feel  that  he  rests  under  the  censure  of  all  the  good 
women  by  whom  he  is  surrounded.  The  harshest  words  that 
were  spoken  against  the  crusaders  were  spoken  by  the  women 
whom  they  found  behind  the  bars  tbey  visited;  and  these 
poor  creatures  were  speaking  to  win  the  approval  of  the 
brutal  men  they  loved.  A  man  who  has  not  some  woman, 
somewhere,  who  believes  in  him,  trusts  him  and  loves  him,  has 
reached  a  point  where  self-respect  is  gone.  All  men,  who 
deserve  the  name  of  men,  desire  the  respect  of  women ;  and 
when  a  man  finds  himself  in  a  business  which  fixes  upon  him 
the  disapproval  of  a  whole  community  of  women,  a  power  is 
brought  to  bear  upon  him  which  he  certainly  cannot  ignore, 
and  which  he  finds  it  difficult  to  resist.  The  power  of  woman, 
simply  as  woman,  has  had  too  many  illustrations  in  history  to 
need  further  discussion  here.  A  man's  self-respect  can  only 
be  nursed  to  its  best  estate  in  the  approval  of  the  finer  sense 
and  quicker  conscience  of  the  women  who  know  him. 

The  third  reason  was  that  the  end  which  these  women 
sought  was  purely  and  beneficently  a  moral  one.  They  were 
not  after  money,  they  did  not  pursue  revenge,  they  did  not 
seek  political  power  or  preferment,  they  worked  in  the  interest 


WOMAN:  243 

of  no  party.  All  they  desired,  and  all  they  labored  for,  was 
the  reform  and  safety  of  their  husbands,  brothers,  fathers  and 
sons,  and  the  extinction  of  those  temptations  and  sources 
of  temptation  which  endangered  them.  They  bore  no  ill- 
will  to  the  dram-seller,  but  the  moment  he  relinquished  his 
traffic,  they  covered  him  with  their  kindness  and  sympathy. 
They  not  only  did  not  have  the  sympathy  of  party  men,  as 
such,  but  they  were  denied  the  sympathy  of  portions  of  the 
Christian  Church.  They  pursued  a  much  desired  moral  end 
by  purely  moral  means.  They  sought  nothing  for  themselves, 
but  everything  for  the  men  they  loved,  and  for  the  men  that 
other  women  loved.  The  element  of  self-sacrifice  was  in  it  all. 
They  went  from  peaceful  home  pursuits,  from  the  retirement 
which  was  most  congenial  to  them,  from  prayers  where  they 
begged  for  the  blessing  of  heaven  upon  their  enterprise,  into 
the  street,  into  foul  dens  of  debauchery,  into  private  expostula- 
tions with  brutal  men,  into  atmospheres  reeking  with  ribaldry, 
and  all  to  save  others.  No  man  with  a  spark  of  manliness  in 
him — which,  after  all,  is  only  godliness  expressed  in  human 
character — could  regard  such  a  spectacle  as  that  without  being 
moved  to  admiration  and  reverence. 

And  now  for  the  lesson  which  this  crusade — now  retired 
into  history — teaches  us.  It  will  be  a  hard  one  for  some 
women  to  learn,  but  a  desire  for  the  conservation  of  the  best 
forces  of  society  demands  that  it  shall  not  only  be  stated,  but 
heeded.  The  ballot,  even  when  exercised  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, has  not  yet,  in  any  State,  proved  a  cure  for  drunkenness. 
No  law  that  has  been  enacted  for  the  suppression  of  dram- 
selling,  even  in  States  where  special  constabulary  machinery 
has  been  instituted  for  executing  it,  has  done  so  much  for  the 
end  sought  as  this  crusade  has  done.  In  Massachusetts,  the 
necessity  of  reform  is  as  urgent  as  in  New  York.  Does  any 


244 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


one  suppose  that  the  moral  power  which  the  women  wield 
to-day  would  be  in  their  hands  to  wield  if  they  held  the 
ballot  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  They  are  strong  because  they  are 
not  political.  They  are  strong  because  they  have  no  party  to 
serve,  no  personal  ambitions  to  push,  no  selfish  ends  to  seek. 
If  the  Western  women  had  had  the  ballot,  how  long  is  it  to  be 
supposed  that  their  crusade  would  have  been  without  political 
leadership  and  political  perversion  ?  If  these  women  had 
been  the  representatives  of  political  power,  how  much  tolera- 
tion would  they  have  received  at  the  hands  of  those  whose 
interests  they,  imperiled  or  destroyed  ?  What  kind  of  treat- 
ment would  an  office-holder  have  had  in  their  ranks  ?  Would 
an  office-holder  have  dared  to  be  seen  in  their  ranks  at  all  ? 
If  woman  had  the  ballot,  such  a  crusade  would  simply  have 
been  impossible.  To  respond  that  it  would  have  been  un- 
necessary, is  to  trifle  with  the  subject.  Men  would  be  obliged 
to  execute  whatever  laws  women  might  pass,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, and  they  would  execute  the  laws  passed  through 
the  votes  of  women  no  better  than  they  do  their  own. 

Further,  let  it  be  witnessed,  that  the  women  who  did  the 
most  of  the  work  in  that  crusade  never  have  asked  for  the 
ballot,  and  never  will  do  so.  They  would  regard  the  confer- 
ment of  political  suffrage  upon  them  as  a  calamity,  and  it 
would  undoubtedly  be  a  calamity.  It  would  rob  them  of 
their  peculiar  power — a  power  which  all  experience  proves 
cannot  be  preserved  too  carefully.  Woman  cannot  afford  the 
ballot.  It  would  tie  her  hands,  weaken  her  influence,  destroy 
her  disinterestedness  in  the  treatment  of  all  public  questions, 
and  open  into  the  beautiful  realms  of  her  moral  power  ten 
thousand  streams  of  weakness  and  corruption.  The  woman 
who  said  that  the  crusade  "meant  the  ballot,"  proved  only  by 
that  speech  how  poorly  qualified  she  was  to  use  a  ballot.  She 


WOMAN.  24e 

ought  to  have  seen  in  the  crusade  something  greater  than  the 
ballot — something  almost  infinitely  above  the  poor  machinery 
of  politics — something  by  the  side  of  which  the  ballot  would 
be  only  a  toy.  The  crusade  did  not  mean  the  ballot;  it 
meant  that  woman  does  not  need  the  ballot,  cannot  afford  to 
take  the  ballot,  will  not  have  the  ballot;  and  on  this  con- 
viction let  all  American  society  gratefully  felicitate  itself. 

PROVISION  FOR  WIVES  AND  CHILDREN. 

The  disasters  that  have  occurred  in  the  business  circles  of 
New  York  during  the  last  few  months  are  full  of  practical 
suggestions,  upon  which  the  daily  press  has  made  abundant 
comment ;  but  one  of  them  has  received  but  little  notice — viz.: 
the  effect  of  these  disasters  upon  the  families  of  the  sufferers. 
These,  with  many  dependents,  were  sharers  in  the  prosperity 
of  those  who  have  gone  down  to  poverty.  They  lived  in  fine 
houses,  and  had  all  the  privileges  which  wealth  bestowed. 
Many  of  these  business  men  had  wives,  who  had  been  helpers 
and  household  economists  through  all  the  years  of  early  strug- 
gle, and  who  held  a  strong  moral  claim  upon  a  portion  of  the 
wealth  which  they  have  seen  swept  away  without  the  power  to 
lift  a  finger  or  say  a  word  in  self-protection.  In  a  day,  they 
have  seen  the  accumulations  of  years  melt  away,  and  them- 
selves and  their  little  ones  made  poor.  The  husband  and 
father,  with  burdens  too  heavy  to  be  borne  in  his  office  or  his 
counting-room,  goes  to  his  home  to  be  tortured  with  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  straitened  life,  among  those  who  are  more  precious 
to  him  than  all  his  wealth  had  been.  It  is  quite  likely  that  he 
will  find  heroism  and  self-denial  and  cheerfulness  there ;  but 
his  pain  will  not  be  wholly  cured  by  these,  and  he  must  always 
regret  that  when  he  had  the  power  to  secure  a  competence  to 
his  dependents  he  did  not  do  it. 


2 46  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

A  large  majority  of  the  business  men  of  New  York  carry  a 
heavy  life  insurance ;  but  this,  at  the  very  moment  of  the  fail- 
ure of  any  one  of  them,  is  not  only  no  help  to  him,  but,  by  its 
yearly  demands  upon  his  resources,  a  constant  drag  upon  his 
efforts  and  prosperity.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  he  will  be  un- 
able to  keep  up  his  yearly  premiums,  and  so  be  obliged  to 
sacrifice  all  that  he  has  paid  during  the  previous  years.  Life 
insurance  makes  a  provision  for  his  death,  but  none  at  all  for 
a  disaster  that  may  destroy  his  power  to  provide  for  his  family 
just  as  effectually  as  his  removal  from  the  world.  His  power 
even  to  keep  his  life  insured  goes  with  his  power  to  make 
money,  and  thus  his  family  is  left  helpless  whether  he  live  or  die. 

All  men  who  deal  in  stocks,  all  who  are  in  commercial  or 
mercantile  life,  and  all  who  are  engaged  in  manufactures,  have 
much  at  risk.  Wars,  revulsions,  bad  crops,  capricious  legisla- 
tion, changes  in  the  channels  of  trade,  over-production — one 
or  more  of  these,  and  other  adverse  causes,  come  in  at  un- 
looked-for seasons,  and  prove  to  them  all  that  they  hold  their 
wealth  by  a  very  uncertain  tenure.  There  is  no  man  who 
does  business  at  all  who  may  not  be  ruined  by  a  combination 
of  circumstances  that  he  can  neither  foresee  nor  control. 

Now,  we  know  of  no  way  by  which  a  man  can  protect  his 
family  but  by  taking  a  competent  sum  from  his  business  and 
bestowing  it  upon  them  outright,  and  securing  it  to  them,  in 
the  days  of  actual  wealth  and  prosperity.  A  man  who,  by 
honest  enterprise,  has  secured  wealth,  has  the  right  to  bestow 
it  where  he  chooses.  When  such  a  man  endows  a  seminary, 
or  establishes  a  charity  of  any  sort,  we  praise  him.  We 
acknowledge  his  right  to  do  what  he  will  with  his  own ;  and  we 
ought  not  only  to  acknowledge  his  right  to  endow  his  family 
with  the  means  of  support,  but  insist  that  it  is  his  duty  to  do  so 
even  before  he  endows  his  seminary  or  establishes  his  char- 
ity. 


247 

There  are  two  objections  to  this  course,  one  of  them  coming 
from  the  man  himself,  and  the  other  from  the  community. 
The  man  insists,  either  that  he  cannot  spare  the  necessary 
sum  from  his  business,  or  that  he  believes  he  can  do  better  for 
his  family  by  risking  his  all;  while  the  community,  trusting 
him,  reckons  among  his  means  that  which  he  seems  to  own, 
even  when,  in  fact,  it  is  owned  by  his  wife,  the  transfer  never 
having  been  publicly  known.  It  is  against  the  man's  mistakes 
that  we  wish  specially  to  protest.  He  has  no  moral  right  to 
risk  his  all,  when  its  loss  would  make  his  family  poor,  provided 
he  has  more  than  enough  to  do  a  fair,  safe  business.  This  is 
the  fatal  blunder  that  nearly  all  men  make.  Their  business 
grows,  and  its  requirements  grow,  with  their  consent,  or  by 
their  strenuous  efforts.  Large,  superfluous  wealth  is  their  aim, 
and  it  is  this  inexcusable  motive  which  prevents  them  from 
doing  justice  to  their  dependents.  If  they  would  abandon 
this  aim,  there  would  be  nothing  in  the  way  of  a  wise  and 
provident  policy. 

The  objection  on  the  part  of  the  community  is,  under  the 
present  condition  of  affairs,  a  sound  one;  but  a  little  legisla- 
tion would  set  this  aside.  If  the  transfer  of  money  or  prop- 
erty to  one's  wife  and  family  were  legally  required  to  be  made 
as  public  as  the  gift  of  a  considerable  sum  to  a  public  institu- 
tion is  naturally  made,  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  the  mat- 
ter. If,  when  a  man  endows  his  wife  with  property,  the  act 
could  only  be  made  legal  by  the  publication  of  the  fact, 
and  by  a  public  statement  of  the  sum  transferred,  showing 
that  his  available  capital  had  been  reduced  by  that  amount, 
the  business  community  would  be  protected.  We  see  no 
valid  objection  to  this.  There  are  many  ways  in  which,  for 
public  reasons,  the  private  affairs  of  a  man  are  required  to  be 
made  known,  and  there  is  nothing  in  this  transaction  which 


248  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

should  exempt  it  from  publicity.  Rascality  would  avail  itself 
of  this  privilege,  without  doubt,  if  it  could  ;  but  the  privilege 
may  be  protected  by  all  the  safeguards  that  legislation  can 
throw  around  it.  A  man  may  be  compelled  to  prove  that  he 
has  the  right  to  dispose  of  a  portion  of  his  estate  in  the  way 
proposed,  without  prejudice  to  his  creditors  or  the  community. 
We  write  without  any  knowledge  of  what  the  laws  are,  but 
with  a  very  distinct  idea  of  what  they  may  and  ought  to  be. 
We  are,  at  least,  sure  that  there  ought  to  be  some  way  in 
which  men  of  wealth  may  justly, — with  every  obligation  to 
the  community  fairly  considered, — protect  their  wives  and 
little  ones  in  the  possession  of  a  portion  of  their  means  hon- 
estly won ;  and  we  hope  that  those  who  are  wise  and  power- 
ful will  see  to  it  before  new  disasters  come  to  plunge  other 
families  into  ruin,  and  remind  them  of  a  duty  too  long  neglected. 


WOMAN  AND  HOME. 

THE  NEW  YORK  WOMAN. 

Wnat  kind  of  a  being  is  the  typical  New  York  Woman  ? 
Our  neighbors  across  the  water  evidently  regard  her  as  some- 
thing very  different  from  the  typical  Englishwoman ;  and  they 
form  their  judgments  not  so  much  by  what  they  know  of  the 
New  York  Woman  at  home,  as  by  what  they  see  of  her  abroad. 
Tney  find  her  extravagant  in  her  tastes,  something  more  than 
self-assured  in  her  bearing,  "  loud  "  in  her  dress,  and  superficial 
in  her  education  and  accomplishments — if  she  has  any.  Now 
we  do  not  admit  that  a  woman  who  can  be  thus  characterized 
is  the  type  of  New  York  womanhood.  The  world  does  not 
hold  better  women,  or  better  educated  women,  or  better  man- 
nered women,  than  are  to  be  found  in  great  numbers  in  this 
much  defamed  city;  but  the  Englishman  does  not  see  them, 
for  they  jealously  guard  their  society  when  he  comes  here,  and 
when  they  travel  they  are  unobtrusive  and  do  not  attract  his 
attention.  The  average  traveling  Englishman  in  New  York 
knows  just  as  little  of  the  best  society  of  New  York  as  the 
average  traveling  American  does  of  the  best  society  of  Lon- 
don. 

Yet  the  Englishman  has  an  apology  in  what  he  sees,  and, 
perhaps,  in  all  that  he  sees,  for  the  severity  of  his  judgment. 
There  is  a  type  of  womanhood  in  New  York — and  it  has, 


250 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


alas !  far  too  many  representatives — of  which  every  American, 
everywhere,  has  reason  to  be  ashamed.  The  same  type  can  be 
found  in  all  the  large  cities  of  the  country,  but  it  exists  in  its 
perfection  here.  It  lives  in  hotels  and  boarding-houses ;  it 
travels,  it  haunts  the  fashionable  watering-places ;  it  is  prom- 
inent at  the  opera  and  the  ball ;  in  short,  it  is  wherever  it  can 
show  itself  and  its  clothes.  It  rejoices  over  a  notice  of  itself 
in  the  Evening  Chatterbox,  or  the  Weekly  Milk  and  Water,  as 
among  the  proudest  and  most  grateful  of  its  social  achieve- 
ments. Its  grand  first  question  is :  "  Wherewithal  shall  I  be 
clothed  ?  "  and  when  that  is  answered  as  well  as  it  can  be,  the 
next  is :  "  How  and  where  can  I  show  my  clothes  so  as  to 
attract  the  most  men,  distress  the  greatest  number  of  women, 
and  make  the  most  stunning  social  sensation  ?  "  We  have  no 
fear  of  exaggerating  in  this  characterization.  We  have  seen 
these  women  at  home  and  away;  and  their  presumption,  bold- 
ness, vanity,  idleness,  display,  and  lack  of  all  noble  and 
womanly  aims  are  a  disgrace  to  the  city  which  produces  them, 
and  the  country  after  whose  name  they  call  themselves. 

Of  course  there  is  a  sufficient  cause  for  the  production  of 
this  type  of  woman,  and  it  is  to  be  found  in  her  circumstances 
and  way  of  life.  It  is  prevalent  among  the  nouveaux  riches — 
among  those  of  humble  beginnings  and  insufficient  breeding 
and  education.  It  is  fostered  in  boarding-houses  and  hotels — 
those  hot-beds  of  jealousy  and  personal  and  social  rivalry  and 
aimless  idleness.  The  woman  who  finds  herself  housed  and 
clothed  and  fed  and  petted  and  furnished  with  money  for 
artificial  as  well  as  real  wants,  without  the  lifting  of  a  finger, 
or  the  burden  of  a  care,  and  without  the  culture  of  head  or 
heart  that  leads  her  to  seek  for  the  higher  satisfactions  of 
womanhood,  becomes  in  the  most  natural  way  precisely  what 
we  have  described.  It  would  be  unnatural  for  her  to  become 


WOMAN  AND  HOME. 


251 


anything  else.  The  simple  truth  is,  that  unless  women  have  a 
routine  of  duty  that  diverts  their  thoughts  from  themselves, 
and  gives  them  something  to  think  of  besides  dress  and  the 
exhibition  of  it,  they  degenerate.  The  only  cure  for  this  that 
we  know  of  is  universal  housekeeping.  There  is  no  man 
who  can  afford  to  pay  a  fair  price  for  board,  who  cannot  afford 
to  keep  house;  and  housekeeping,  though  it  be  never  so 
humble,  is  the  most  natural  and  the  healthiest  office  to  which 
woman  is  ever  called.  There  is  no  one  thing  that  would  do 
so  much  to  elevate  the  type  of  New  York  womanhood  as  a 
universal  secession  from  boarding-house  and  hotel  life,  and  a 
universal  entrance  upon  separate  homes.  Such  a  step  would 
increase  the  stock  of  happiness,  improve  health  of  body  and 
health  of  mind,  and  raise  at  once  the  standard  of  morals  anr1 
manners. 

The  devil  always  finds  work  for  idle  hands  to  do,  whethei 
the  hands  belong  to  men  or  women ;  but  American  men  are 
not  apt  to  be  idle.  They  are  absorbed  in  work  from  early 
until  late,  and  leave  their  idle  wives,  cooped  up  in  rooms  that 
cost  them  no  care,  to  get  rid  of  the  lingering  time  as  they 
can.  Is  it  kind  to  do  this,  or  is  it  cruel  ?  If  it  is  kind  in  its 
motives,  it  is  cruel  in  its  results.  The  whole  system  of  board- 
ing-house and  hotel  life  is  vicious.  To  live  in  public,  to  be 
on  dress  parade  every  day,  to  be  always  part  and  parcel  of  a 
gossiping  multitude,  to  live  aimlessly  year  after  year,  with 
thoughts  concentrated  upon  one's  person  and  one's  selfish 
delights,  to  be  perpetually  without  a  routine  of  healthy  duty, 
is  to  take  the  broadest  and  briefest  road  to  the  degradation  of 
all  that  is  admirable  and  lovable  in  womanhood.  It  is  to 
make,  by  the  most  natural  process,  that  gay,  gaudy,  loud, 
frivolous,  pretentious,  vain,  intriguing,  unsatisfied,  and  unhappy 
creature  which  the  Englishman  knows  as  "The  New  York 
Woman.  " 


252  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

DRESSING  THE  GIRLS. 

THE  complaint  made  by  certain  women,  and  by  certain  men 
on  behalf  of  women,  that  the  provisions  for  woman's  education 
are  not  equal  to  those  for  the  education  of  men,  has  about  as 
much  foundation  as  other  complaints  from  the  same  sources, 
and  has  no  more.  If  there  are  any  institutions  for  educating 
young  men  that  are  better  furnished  and  more  efficient  than 
Vassar  and  Mount  Holyoke  and  Rutgers,  and  other  colleges 
that  could  be  mentioned,  are  for  the  education  of  young 
women,  we  do  not  know  where  they  are  located.  The  public 
school  systems  of  every  State  of  the  Union  open  to  both  sexes 
every  advanced  department  alike;  and  when  we  come  to  the 
highest  class  of  private  schools,  the  provisions  made  for  girls 
are  incomparably  superior  to  those  made  for  boys.  We  do 
not  know  of  a  single  boys'  school  in  the  United  States  that  is 
the  equal  in  all  respects  of  scores,  if  not  hundreds,  of  schools 
devoted  to  the  education  and  culture  of  young  women.  The 
model  school  for  young  women  has  become  already  the  high- 
est achievement  of  our  civilization. 

When  we  bring  within  four  walls,  beneath  a  single  roof,  from 
fifty  to  one  hundred  young  women,  who  from  year's  end  to 
year's  end  are  in  the  constant  society  of  the  best  teachers  that 
money  can  procure ;  who  are  instructed  in  every  branch  of 
learning  that  they  may  desire,  and  are  taught  every  fine  art 
for  which  they  have  any  aptitude;  who  are  feasted  with  con- 
certs and  readings  and  social  reunions,  and  are  led  into  every 
walk  of  culture  for  which  their  richly-freighted  time  gives  leis- 
ure; who  move  among  tasteful  appointments,  and  lodge  in 
good  rooms,  and  eat  at  bountiful  tables,  and  are  subjected  to 
every  purifying  and  refining  influence  that  Christian  love  and 
thoughtfulness  can  bring  to  bear  upon  them,  we  are  prepared 
to  show  about  as  strong  a  contrast  to  the  average  boy's  school, 


WOMAN  ANL  HOME.  2r, 

academy,  and  college,  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine.  Yet  we 
paint  no  fancy  picture.  It  is  drawn  from  the  literal  reality. 
There  are  thousands  of  American  young  women  in  schools  like 
this  which  we  describe,  supported  there  at  an  expense  greater 
by  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent,  than  the  average  amount 
devoted  to  young  men  of  corresponding  ages  in  first-class  in- 
stitutions. It  costs  from  one  thousand  to  two  thousand  dollars 
a  year  to  support  a  girl  at  these  schools — including  the  ex- 
pense of  dress — and  men  all  over  the  United  States,  who  have 
the  means  to  do  it,  are  educating  their  daughters  in  this  way 
and  at  this  cost.  The  truth  is,  that  there  are  no  such  provis- 
ions made  for  men  as  there  are  for  women.  They  are  obliged 
to  get  their  education  in  cheaper  schools  and  in  a  rougher 
way. 

It  is  because  the  education  of  girls  is  so  expensive  and  has 
become  so  much  of  a  burden,  that  we  write  this  article.  To 
pay  for  a  single  girl's  schooling  and  support  at  school  a  sum 
which  is  quite  competent  to  support  in  comfort  a  small  family 
— a  sum  greater  than  the  average  income  of  American  families — 
is  a  severe  tax  on  the  best-filled  purse.  It  can  be  readily  seen, 
however,  that  the  school  itself  neither  receives  nor  makes  too 
much  money.  The  extraordinary  expense  for  many  girls  is  in  the 
matter  of  dress.  It  is  a  shame  to  parents  and  daughters  alike 
that  there  are  a  great  many  young  women  in  American  board- 
ing-schools whose  dress  costs  a  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and 
even  more  than  that  sum.  The  effect  of  this  over-dressing  on 
the  spirit  and  manners  of  those  who  indulge  in  it,  as  well  as 
on  those  who  are  compelled  to  economical  toilets,  is  readily 
apprehended  by  women,  if  not  by  men.  This  extravagant 
dressing  is  an  evil  which  ought  to  be  obviated  in  some  way. 
How  shall  it  be  done  ?  America  is  full  of  rich  people — of  peo- 
ple F o  freshly  in  the  possession  of  money  that  they  know  of  no 


254 


E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


way  by  which  to  express  their  wealth  except  through  lavish 
display.  They  build  fine  houses,  they  buy  showy  equipages, 
and  then  burden  themselves  with  dress  and  jewelry.  Human 
nature  in  a  young  woman  is,  perhaps,  as  human  as  it  is  any- 
where; and  so  there  comes  to  be  a  certain  degree  of  em- 
ulation or  competition  in  dress  among  school-girls,  and  alto- 
gether too  much  thought  is  given  to  the  subject, — to  a  subject 
which  in  school  should  absorb  very  little  thought. 

We  know  of  but  one  remedy  for  this  difficulty,  and  that  is  a 
simple  uniform.  We  do  not  know  why  it  is  not  just  as  well 
for  girls  to  dress  in  uniform  as  for  boys.  There  are  many  ex- 
cellent schools  in  England  where  the  girls  dress  in  uniform 
throughout  their  entire  education.  We  believe  that  a  uniform 
dress  is  the  general  habit  in  Catholic  schools  everywhere. 
By  dressing  in  uniform,  the  thoughts  of  all  the  pupils  are  re- 
leased from  the  consideration  of  dress;  there  is  no  show  of 
wealth,  and  no  confession  of  poverty.  Girls  from  widely-sep- 
arated localities  and  classes  come  together,  and  stand  or  fall 
by  scholarship,  character,  disposition,  and  manners.  The 
term  of  study  could  be  lengthened  by  the  use  of  the  money 
that  would  thus  be  saved ;  and  while  a  thousand  considerations 
favor  such  a  change,  we  are  unable  to  think  of  one  that 
makes  against  it.  There  is  no  virtue  and  no  amiable  char- 
acteristic of  young  women  that  would  not  be  relieved  of  a  bane 
and  nursed  into  healthy  life  by  the  abandonment  of  expensive 
dress  at  school.  Who  will  lead  the  way  in  this  most  desirable 
reform  ? 

HOME  AND  ITS  QUEEN. 

There  are  not  many  propositions,  in  this  captious  world 
and  questioning  age,  that  are  permitted  to  pass  unchallenged. 
It  used  to  be  supposed  that  Adam  was  the  first  man,  but  there 


WOMAN  AND  HOME.  255 

are  those  who  doubt  it  now.  The  solid  democratic  faith  in 
universal  suffrage  is  shaken  in  a  multutide  of  minds  by  the 
facility  with  which  the  demagogue  appropriates  a  popular  priv- 
ilege to  his  own  corrupt  purposes.  Our  good  old  Bible,  out 
of  which  has  come  all  that  is  worth  anything  in  our  civilization, 
and  in  which  the  most  of  us  trust,  has  been  the  butt  of  the 
skeptic  for  centuries,  and  hears  strange  questions  in  these  days 
from  the  lips  of  those  who  pretend  to  preach  its  truth.  Still, 
two  and  two  make  four,  the  sun  is  larger  than  the  earth,  and 
we  have  yet  to  hear  any  man  or  woman  deny  that  in  the  qual- 
ity of  the  homes  of  the  nation  abides  the  nation's  destiny.  If 
these  homes  are  nurseries  of  manly  and  womanly  virtue,  and 
schools  of  economy  and  prosperity,  the  natural  outcome  and 
expression  of  them  will  be  a  government  of  justice  and  free- 
dom, and  social  institutions  that  shall  be  liberal  and  pure. 

There  is  probably  not  an  unperverted  man  or  woman  living 
who  does  not  feel  that  the  sweetest  consolations  and  best 
rewards  of  life  are  found  in  the  loves  and  delights  of  home. 
There  are  very  few  who  do  not  feel  themselves  indebted  to  the 
influences  that  clustered  around  their  cradles  for  whatever  of 
good  there  may  be  in  their  characters  and  conditions.  Home, 
based  upon  Christian  marriage,  is  so  evidently  an  institution  of 
God,  that  a  man  must  become  profane  before  he  can  deny  it. 
Wherever  it  is  planted,  there  stands  a  bulwark  of  the  State. 
Wherever  it  is  pure,  and  true  to  the  Christian  idea,  there  lives 
an  institution  conservative  of  all  the  nobler  interests  of  society. 
Of  this  realm  woman  is  the  queen.  It  takes  its  cue  and  its 
hue  from  her.  If  she  is  in  the  best  sense  womanly, — if  she  is 
true  and  tender,  loving  and  heroic,  patient  and  self-devcted, — 
she  consciously  or  unconsciously  organizes  and  puts  in  opera 
tion  a  set  of  influences  that  do  more  to  mould  the  destiny  of 
the  nation  than  any  man,  uncrowned  by  power  or  eloquence, 


2  r  6  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

can  possibly  effect.  The  men  of  the  nation  are  what  their 
mothers  make  them,  as  a  rule;  and  the  voice  which  those  men 
speak  in  the  expression  of  their  power  is  the  voice  of  the 
women  who  bore  and  bred  them.  There  can  be  no  substitute 
for  this.  There  is  no  other  possible  way  in  which  the  women 
of  the  nation  can  organize  their  influence  and  power  that  will 
tell  so  beneficently  upon  society  and  the  State.  Neither  woman 
nor  the  nation  can  afford  to  have  home  demoralized,  or  in  any 
way  deteriorated  by  the  loss  of  her  presence,  or  the  lessening 
of  her  influence  there.  As  a  nation  we  rise  or  fall  as  the  char- 
acter of  our  homes,  presided  over  by  woman,  rises  or  falls; 
and  the  best  gauge  of  our  best  prosperity  is  to  be  found  in  the 
measure  by  which  these  homes  find  multiplication  in  the  land. 
In  true  marriage,  and  the  struggle  after  the  highest  ideal  of 
home  life,  is  to  be  found  the  solution  of  more  of  the  ugly 
problems  that  confront  the  present  generation — moral,  social, 
and  political — than  we  have  space  to  enumerate. 

Thus  far  few  will  differ  with  us,  we  imagine;  and  further 
than  this  we  do  not  care  to  go,  except  to  say  that  whatever 
there  may  be  in  the  schemes  so  industriously  put  forward  for 
changing  the  position  and  sphere  of  woman  which  will  tend 
to  make  home  better,  and  its  queen  more  modest  and  gentle 
and  pure,  shall  have  our  earnest  support.  If  an  active  com- 
petition with  man  in  professional  or  mercantile  life  will  fit 
woman  for  home  life,  and  help  to  endow  her  with  those  virtues 
whose  illustration  is  so  essential  to  her  best  influence  in  the 
family,  let  her  by  all  means  engage  in  this  competition.  If  the 
studies  and  apprenticeships  necessary  to  make  such  a  life  as 
this  successful  are  those  which  peculiarly  fit  women  to  be 
wives  and  mothers,  and  prepare  them  to  preside  over  the 
homes  of  the  people,  let  us  change  our  educational  institutions 
to  meet  the  necessity,  and  do  it  at  once.  If  woman's  power 


WOMAN  AND  HOME.  257 

over  the  ballot-box,  now  exercised  by  shaping  the  voter,  and 
lifting  the  moral  tone  of  the  nation  at  home,  will  be  made 
better  and  more  unselfish  by  giving  her  a  hand  in  political 
strife,  and  the  chance  for  an  office,  let  her  vote  by  all  means. 
If  those  virtues  and  traits  of  character  which  are  universally 
recognized  as  womanly  are  nurtured  by  participation  in  public 
life — if  woman  grows  more  modest,  sweet,  truthful,  and  trust- 
worthy by  familiarity  with  political  intrigues,  or  by  engaging 
in  public  debates — if  her  home  grows  better  and  more  influen- 
tial for  good  in  consequence  of  her  absence  from  it,  then  we 
advocate  without  qualification  her  entrance  upon  public  life  at 
once,  and  demand  that  the  broadest  place  shall  be  made  for 
her.  If  the  number  of  true  marriages  is  to  be  increased  by  a 
policy  that  tends  to  make  the  sexes  competitors  with  each 
other  for  the  prizes  of  wealth  and  place,  and  secures  to  any 
marked  degree  their  independence  of  each  other,  then  let  that 
policy  be  adopted. 

This  good,  thus  contingently  specified,  is  the  grand  desider- 
atum of  our  country  and  our  time.  Our  suppositions  involve 
questions  of  vital,  paramount  importance.  They  stand  before 
and  above  all  other  questions  connected  with  woman's  work, 
woman's  rights,  and  woman's  future.  They  ought  to  be  set- 
tled by  a  wise  consideration  and  discussion ;  and  we  believe 
that  when  they  shall  be  settled  thus,  all  good  men  and  women 
will  find  themselves  upon  a  common  platform,  and  the  ques- 
tions which  agitate  us  now  will  have  vanished. 


AMUSEMENTS. 

THEATRES  AND  THEATRE-GOING. 

The  recent  discussion  of  the  influence  of  theatres  has 
brought  up  the  old  subject  again,  and  called  for  a  re-statement 
of  what  we  regard  as  the  true  and  rational  position  of  the 
church  upon  the  question.  The  radical  mistake  of  the  Prot- 
estant Church  of  this  country  is  that  lack  of  discrimination,  in 
its  condemnation  of  theatres,  which  has  gone  to  the  extreme 
of  making  that  a  sin  in  itself  which  is  not  a  sin  at  all.  To  go 
to  the  theatre,  for  an  evening's  entertainment,  is  regarded  by 
multitudes  as  a  flagrant  wrong.  So  wrong  is  it  considered  in 
itself,  or  so  bad  is  it  in  example,  that  ministers  are  shut  out  of 
the  theatre  as  a  class,  with  sweeping  completeness.  For  a 
clergyman  to  be  seen  in  a  theatre,  is  to  compromise  his  posi- 
tion and  influence.  We  know  that  many  clergymen  regard 
this  as  a  hardship,  for  they  have  told  us  so ;  but  their  unwise 
predecessors  have  made  the  bed  for  them,  and  they  are  obliged 
to  lie  in  it.  The  public  opinion  that  has  been  generated  in  the 
church,  by  pulpit  criticism  and  denunciation,  has  built  a  wall 
around  the  theatre  so  high  that  men  holding  responsible  posi- 
tions in  the  church  cannot  cross  it. 

For  this  position  of  the  church,  the  stage  itself  is  very 
largely  responsible.  The  stage  has  always  been  under  strong 
temptations  to  self-degradation.  If  it  had  always  been  pure ; 


AMUSEMENTS. 


259 


if  the  amusements  it  has  offered  to  the  public  had  always  been 
innocent;  if  it  had  not  at  one  period  of  its  history  been  a 
breeding  place  of  vice ;  if  it  had  not  presented  strong  attrac- 
tions to  those  who  seek  the  society  of  lewd  women ;  if  pro- 
fanity and  poorly  disguised  obscenity  had  never  had  a  place  in 
the  plays  presented;  if  impure  imaginations  had  not  been 
cherished  among  the  young  by  half  nude  dancing  girls;  in 
brief,  if  the  animal  nature — the  lower  nature — had  not  been 
addressed  so  persistently  by  those  who  have  assumed  the  en- 
tertainment of  the  public,  the  church  would  never  have  taken 
the  position  that  it  has.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
protest  was  strong,  when  the  provocation  was  so  shameless. 
The  older  men  of  the  present  day  remember  the  horrible 
"Third  Tier"  of  their  youth.  They  remember,  too,  the  double 
entendre,  the  polite  profanity,  the  broad  jest,  that  woke  the 
disgusting  cheers  of  "the  pit."  It  is  no  justification  of  an 
institution  that  has  arrogated  to  itself  the  title  of  "  a  school  of 
morals,"  that  it  offered  what  was  demanded,  and  what  the 
public  most  willingly  paid  for.  It  was  a  part  of  the  legitimate 
office  of  the  stage  to  protect  public  morals  and  to  educate  the 
public  into  a  pure  taste.  The  enmity  of  the  church  toward  the 
stage  has  not  been  without  cause. 

But  the  stage  is  better  than  it  was,  on  the  whole.  We  have 
vile  theatres  in  New  York,  to-day — altogether  too  many  of 
them — -plays  presented  that  degrade  or  vitiate  the  taste,  and 
the  morals  of  those  who  witness  them — men  and  women  on 
the  boards  who  are  base  in  character  and  life.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  have  theatres  whose  aims  are  high,  and  actors  and 
actresses  who  have  pride  of  personal  character,  and  a  desire 
and  determination  to  hold  their  most  interesting  art  to  purity 
and  respectability.  These  people— faithful  husbands  and  wives, 
intellectual  men  and  women,  good  fathers,  mothers,  maidens, 


2  6o  £  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

friends  and  citizens — naturally  chafe  under  the  wholesale  con- 
demnation which  the  church  visits  upon  them.  We  cannot 
blame  them  for  this.  We  can  only  ask  them  to  be  patient 
with  a  state  of  things  which  a  multitude  of  their  predecessors 
and  many  of  their  contemporaries  have  helped  to  bring  about. 
The  church  is  gradually  working  toward  their  recognition,  and 
they  must  give  it  time  to  move. 

There  was  a  time,  and  it  was  not  long  ago,  when  cards 
were  banished  from  every  Christian  household.  The  older 
men  and  women  of  the  church  very  well  remember  when  a 
pack  of  cards  found  in  a  boy's  trunk  would  be  taken  as  proof 
that  the  devil  had  a  very  strong  hold  upon  its  owner.  Mil- 
lions of  men  and  women  have  been  bred  to  believe  that  card- 
playing  was — with  or  without  reason — a  sin  in  itself.  That 
time  has  passed  away  already,  and  the  innocent  little  paste- 
boards have  become  a  source  of  amusement  in  great  multi- 
tudes of  Christian  families.  Children  never  could  see  any 
reason  in  their  exclusion,  and  the  church  is  stronger  in  the 
child's  mind  for  the  change  that  has  occurred.  Billiards  were 
once  so  associated  with  vicious  resorts  and  vicious  practices, 
that"  a  man  disgraced  himself  by  appearing  where  they  were. 
Now  a  billiard-table  is  in  nearly  every  house  that  can  afford 
one,  and  is  purchased  in  many  instances  as  a  home-guardian 
of  the  morals  of  the  boys.  Novel-reading  was  once  as 
thoroughly  under  ban  as  theatre-going.  We  remember  the 
time  when  the  novel-reader  hid  his  books — read  them  when  he 
ought  to  have  been  asleep— stole  their  charms  on  rainy  days, 
in  garrets  or  on  hay-mows,  and  then  passed  them  into  the 
hands  of  some  other  sly  thief  of  pleasure,  who  still  passed 
them  on,  until  they  were  worn  out.  Well,  the  first  novels 
were  poor.  They  gave  false  ideas  of  life,  and  were  condemned 
en  masse  by  the  church ;  but  the  church  found  at  an  early  day 


AMUSEMENTS.  26i 

that  i*:  wanted  novels  for  its  own  purposes.  Now  the  great 
majority  of  Sunday-school  books  are  novels  of  a  religious  sort, 
while  every  Christian  library  holds  Scott  and  Dickens  and 
Thackeray ;  and  the  public  libraries  and  the  reading-clubs,  all 
over  the  land,  find  more  readers  for  their  novels  than  for  any 
other  class  of  books.  They  have  become  the  sources  of 
moral,  political,  and  social  instruction,  as  well  as  of  general 
entertainment,  within  as  well  as  without  the  church. 

We  allude  to  these  sources  of  amusement  and  the  great 
change  that  has  occurred  with  regard  to  them,  for  the  purpose 
of  illustrating  that  which  is  certainly  progressing  in  relation  to 
the  theatre.  We  have  parlor  theatricals,  and  they  are  recog- 
nized more  and  more  as  harmless  and  instructive  amusements. 
We  have  dramatic  exhibitions  in  our  educational  institutions. 
We  go  to  the  opera  really  for  its  music,  but  we  are  obliged  to 
get  this  through  the  representation  of  the  most  vapid  dramatic 
compositions  that  can  be  imagined.  In  short,  we  have  ac- 
knowledged, in  many  ways,  that  the  representation  of  a  play  is 
not  wrong  in  itself,  while  our  Christian  travelers  make  their 
pilgrimages  to  Ober  Ammergau  to  witness  a  play  that  degrades 
the  great  Christian  tragedy  to  the  commonplace  of  spectacular 
drama.  The  time  is  rapidly  coming — provided,  of  course, 
that  those  who  have  the  theatre  in  charge  stand,  as  good  men 
and  women,  by  their  obligations  to  the  public,  and  uphold  the 
dignity  of  their  art — when  Christians  will  seek  amusement  in 
their  presence,  from  their  performances;  when  they  will  dis- 
criminate between  theatres  as  they  do  between  novels,  and 
when  the  premium  of  their  presence  and  patronage  will  be 
offered  to  those  who  serve  them  conscientiously. 

As  a  people,  we  have  no  such  superfluity  of  amusements 
and  recreations  that  we  can  afford  to  hold  one  under  ban,  that 
is  in  itself  harmless  and  legitimate.  We  work  under  great 


262  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

pressure,  and  need  much  more  recreation  than  we  get.  If  a 
man  thus  pressed  feels  that  a  pure  dramatic  representation  re- 
freshes him,  he  ought  to  be  at  liberty  to  avail  himself  of  it 
and  the  time  is  certainly  coming  when  he  will  do  so.  The 
histrionic  art  is  as  legitimate  as  any  art,  and  any  man  or 
woman  who  practices  it  worthily  and  well,  deserves  our  honor, 
— ay,  our  honor  and  our  sympathy,  for  the  art-life  is  a  hard 
life  to  live  under  any  circumstances.  To  be  obliged  to  rely 
for  a  livelihood  upon  the  plaudits  of  the  multitude,  and  to  be 
subject  to  the  caprices  of  the  press  and  the  public,  and  the 
jealousies  that  are  inseparable  from  all  art-life,  is  a  hardship 
from  which  the  bravest  man  and  woman  may  well  shrink.  If, 
among  those  who  have  so  many  temptations  to  strike  a  low 
key  that  they  may  at  least  please  "the  groundlings,"  there  is  a 
considerable  number  who  appeal  to  the  nobilities  of  human 
nature,  let  us  give  them  our  hands  and  help  them  to  build  up 
a  pure  taste  in  the  public  mind.  We  have  only  to  remember 
that  the  theatre  is  with  us,  that  it  will  stay,  and  that  the  church 
has  a  great  responsibility  concerning  the  stage  of  the  future. 
If  it  supposes  that  condemning  it  at  a  street's  length,  and  in- 
discriminately, will  discharge  its  duty,  it  will  find  itself  sadly 
mistaken. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  WEALTH. 

No  one  can  settle  down  in  a  European  city  or  village  for  a 
month,  and  observe  the  laboring  classes,  without  noticing  a 
great  difference  between  their  aspirations,  ambitions  and  hab- 
its, and  those  of  corresponding  classes  in  this  country.  He 
may  see  great  poverty  in  a  continental  town,  and  men  and 
women  laboring  severely  and  faring  meanly,  and  a  hopeless 
gap  existing  between  classes ;  he  may  see  the  poor  virtually 
the  slaves  of  the  rich ;  but  he  will  witness  a  measure  of  con- 


AMUSEMENTS. 


263 


tentment  and  a  daily  participation  in  humble  pleasures  to 
which  his  eyes  have  been  strangers  at  home.  There  is  a  sad 
side  to  this  pleasant  picture.  Much  of  this  apparent  content- 
ment and  enjoyment  undoubtedly  comes  from  the  hopelessness 
of  the  struggle  for  anything  better.  An  impassable  gulf  exists 
between  them  and  the  educated  and  aristocratic  classes — a 
gulf  which  they  have  recognized  from  their  birth ;  and,  hav- 
ing recognized  this,  they  have  recognized  their  own  limitations, 
and  adapted  themselves  to  them.  Seeing  just  what  they  can 
do  and  cannot  do,  they  very  rationally  undertake  to  get  out 
of  life  just  what  their  condition  renders  attainable.  There  is  no 
far-off,  crowning  good  for  them  to  aim  at;  so  they  try  to  get 
what  they,  can  on  the  way.  They  make  much  of  fete-days,  and 
social  gatherings,  and  music,  and  do  what  they  can  to  sweeten 
their  daily  toil,  which  they  know  must  be  continued  while  the 
power  to  labor  lasts. 

In  America  it  is  very  different.  A  humble  backwoodsman 
sits  in  the  presidential  chair,  or  did  sit  there  but  recently ;  a 
tailor  takes  the  highest  honors  of  the  nation ;  a  canal-driver 
becomes  a  powerful  millionaire;  a  humble  school-teacher 
grows  into  a  merchant  prince,  absorbing  the  labor  and  supply- 
ing the  wants  of  tens  of  thousands.  In  city,  state  and  na- 
tional politics,  hundreds  and  thousands  may  be  counted  of 
those  who,  by  enterprise,  and  self-culture,  and  self-assertion, 
have  raised  themselves  from  the  humblest  positions  to  influ- 
ence and  place.  There  is  no  impassable  gulf  between  the  low 
and  the  high.  Every  man  holds  the  ballot,  and,  therefore, 
every  man  is  a  person  of  political  power  and  importance. 
The  ways  of  business  enterprise  are  many,  and  the  rewards 
of  success  are  munificent.  Not  a  year,  nor,  indeed,  a  month, 
passes  by,  that  does  not  illustrate  the  comparative  ease  with 
which  poor  men  win  wealth  or  acquire  power. 


2 64  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

The  consequence  is  that  all  but  the  wholly  brutal  are  aftei 
some  great  good  that  lies  beyond  their  years  of  toil.  The  Eu- 
ropean expects  always  to  be  a  tenant;  the  American  intends 
before  he  dies  to  own  the  house  he  lives  in.  If  city  prices  for- 
bid this,  he  goes  to  the  suburbs  for  his  home.  The  European 
knows  that  life  and  labor  are  cheap,  and  that  he  cannot  hope 
to  win  by  them  the  wealth  which  will  realize  for  him  the  dream 
of  future  ease;  the  American  finds  his  labor  dear,  and  its  re- 
wards comparatively  bountiful,  so  that  his  dream  of  wealth  is 
a  rational  one.  He,  therefore,  denies  himself,  works  early  and 
late,  and  bends  his  energies,  and  directs  those  of  his  family  into 
profitable  channels,  all  for  the  great  good  that  beckons  him  on 
from  the  far-off,  golden  future. 

The  typical  American  never  lives  in  the  present.  If  he  in- 
dulges in  a  recreation,  it  is  purely  for  health's  sake,  and  at  long 
intervals,  or  in  great  emergencies.  He  does  not  waste  money 
on  pleasure,  and  does  not  approve  of  those  who  do  so.  He 
lives  in  a  constant  fever  of  hope  and  expectation,  or  grows 
sour  with  hope  deferred  or  blank  disappointment.  Out  of  it  all 
grows  the  worship  of  wealth  and  that  demoralization  which  re- 
sults in  unscrupulousness  concerning  the  methods  of  its  ac- 
quirement. So  America  presents  the  anomaly  of  a  laboring 
class  with  unprecedented  prosperity  and  privileges,  and  un- 
exampled discontent  and  discomfort. 

There  is  surely  something  better  than  this.  There  is  some- 
thing better  than  a  life-long  sacrifice  of  content  and  enjoyment 
for  a  possible  wealth,  which,  however,  may  never  be  acquired, 
and  which  has  not  the  power,  when  won,  to  yield  its  holder  the 
boon  which  he  expects  it  to  purchase.  To  withhold  from  the 
frugal  wife  the  gown  she  desires,  to  deny  her  the  journey  which 
would  do  so  much  to  break  up  the  monotony  of  her  home-life, 
to  rear  children  in  mean  ways,  to  shut  away  from  the  family 


AMUSEMENTS.  265 

life  a  thousand  social  pleasures,  to  relinquish  all  amusements 
that  have  a  cost  attached  to  them,  for  wealth  which  may  or 
may  not  come  when  the  family  life  is  broken  up  forever — surely 
this  is  neither  sound  enterprise  nor  wise  economy.  We  would 
not  have  the  American  laborer,  fanner  and  mechanic  become 
improvident,  but  we  would  very  much  like  to  see  them  happier 
than  they  are,  by  resort  to  the  daily  social  enjoyments  which  are 
always  ready  to  their  hand.  Nature  is  strong  in  the  young, 
and  they  will  have  society  and  play  of  some  sort.  It  should 
remain  strong  in  the  old,  and  does  remain  strong  in  them,  un- 
til it  is  expelled  by  the  absorbing  and  subordinating  passion 
for  gain.  Something  of  the  Old  World  fondness  for  play,  and 
daily  or  weekly  indulgence  in  it,  should  become  habitual  among 
our  workers.  Toil  would  be  sweeter  if  there  were  a  reward  at 
the  end  of  it;  work  would  be  gentler  when  used  as  a  means 
for  securing  a  pleasure  which  stands  closer  than  an  old  age  of 
ease;  character  would  be  softer  and  richer  and  more  childlike, 
when  acquired  among  genial,  every-day  delights.  The  all-sub- 
ordinating strife  for  wealth,  carried  on  with  fearful  struggles  and 
constant  self-denials,  makes  us  petty,  irritable  and  hard. 
When  the  whole  American  people  have  learned  that  a  dollar's 
worth  of  pure  pleasure  is  worth  more  than  a  dollar's  worth  of 
anything  else  under  the  sun;  that  working  is  not  living,  but 
only  the  means  by  which  we  win  a  living;  that  money  is  good 
for  nothing  except  for  what  it  brings  of  comfort  and  culture; 
and  that  we  live  not  in  the  future,  but  the  present,  they  will  be 
a  happy  people — happier  and  better  than  they  have  been. 
"  The  morrow  shall  take  thought  for  the  things  of  itself,"  may 
not  be  an  accepted  maxim  in  political  economy,  but  it  was  ut- 
tered by  the  wisest  being  that  ever  lived  in  the  world,  whose 
mission  it  was  to  make  men  both  good  and  happy. 


266  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

SUMMER  PLAY. 

There  are  few  sadder  things  in  life  than  the  dying  out  of  the 
impulse  and  disposition  to  play.  A  man  begins  life  with  an 
overflow  of  vitality  and  animal  spirits  which  makes  him  bright, 
genial  and  playful.  He  sympathizes  with  children,  and  even 
with  the  brutes,  in  their  playful  moods,  enjoys  society,  and  en- 
gages on  all  favorable  occasions  in  recreative  exercise  of  the 
body  and  amusements  of  the  mind.  Then  comes  the  struggle 
for  competency  or  wealth,  and  for  twenty  years,  while  his  chil- 
dren are  young,  he  works,  settling  more  and  more  hopelessly 
into  routine,  until  his  competency  or  wealth  is  won,  when  he 
wakes  to  the  fact  that  his  impulse  to  play  and  his  power  to  en- 
joy it  are  gone.  He  finds  that  he  has  lost  his  sympathy  with 
youth,  that  he  regards  their  pursuits  as  frivolous  and  tiresome, 
and  that  there  is  no  interest  in  life  to  him  except  in  daily  toil, 
and  in  the  quiet  fireside  rest  which  follows  it,  uninterrupted  by 
social  intrusions  from  without,  or  social  duties  that  call  him 
forth  from  his  retirement. 

What  New  York  would  become  without  its  summer  recrea- 
tions we  cannot  imagine.  The  heat  of  the  summer  months, 
which  not  only  dries  up  trade,  but  drives  every  man,  woman 
and  child  beyond  its  limits  who  has  the  means  to  leave  them, 
is  the  one  saving  power  of  city  life.  It  is  the  play  of  the  sum- 
mer, the  enforced  idleness,  the  necessity  of  filling  with  amuse- 
ment the  lingering  days,  which  keep  the  whole  city  from  going 
on  to  perfect  wreck.  The  steady  strain  of  nine  months'  busi- 
ness, the  feverish  anxieties  of  trade,  the  overtaxation  of  mind 
and  body,  the  wearying  round  of  social  assemblies,  if  kept  up 
through  the  whole  year,  would  drive  men  mad  or  crush  them 
into  the  grave.  We  have  no  doubt  that  people  in  the  country 
wonder  why  New  Yorkers  are  willing  to  leave  their  splendid 
and  commodious  houses,  and  submit  to  the  numberless  incon 


AMUSEMENTS. 


267 


veniences  and  inferior  fare  of  way-side  places.  They  would 
have  but  to  spend  one  active  winter  in  the  city  to  understand 
it  all.  They  would  then  know  how  precious  the  privilege 
would  be  to  flee  from  hot  sidewalks  and  burning  walls,  and 
the  ceaseless  din  of  wheels,  and  lie  down,  care-free,  in  the 
country  silence,  beneath  an  apple-tree,  or  a  maple,  with  the 
fresh  green  earth  around  and  the  wide  blue  heaven  above 
them. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  those  who  have  the  priv- 
ilege of  leaving  the  city  in  the  summer  that  they  go  where 
they  may  be  free,  and  where  real  play  may  be  unrestricted  by 
any  of  the  conventionalities  of  society.  There  is  no  objection 
to  the  filling  up  of  the  fashionable  watering-places  by  fashion- 
able people  who  have  nothing  to  do  the  whole  year  round  but 
to  play.  There  are  enough  of  these  to  populate  Newport  and 
Saratoga  and  Long  Branch,  and  there  will  be  enough  of  those 
who  are  amused  for  a  little  time  by  looking  at  them  to  keep 
the  hotels  full ;  but  the  well-to-do  working  men  and  women 
can  do  infinitely  better  for  themselves  and  their  children  than 
to  seek  dwellings  in  such  places  for  the  summer.  What  they 
want  is  liberty,  away  from  the  centres  of  observation,  where 
they  can  dress  as  they  choose  and  do  what  they  like.  The 
very  soul  of  play  is  liberty,  and  there  can  be  no  true  recreation 
without  it. 

Nothing  can  be  more  cruel  and  nothing  more  foolish  than 
to  place  children  where  they  must  be  dressed  every  day  in 
fresh  and  fashionable  clothes,  and  their  freedom  to  play  cur- 
tailed for  the  sake  of  appearances.  What  childhood  needs  is 
perfect  freedom  among  the  things  of  nature — freedom  to 
romp,  to  make  mud-pies,  to  leap  fences,  to  row,  to  fish,  to 
climb  trees,  to  chase  butterflies,  to  gather  wild-flowers,  to  live 
out  of  doors  from  morning  until  night,  and  to  do  all  those 


268  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

things  that  innocent  and  healthy  childhood  delights  in,  in 
cheap,  strong  clothes  provided  for  the  purpose.  Exactly  that 
which  childhood  needs,  manhood  and  womanhood  needs — 
perfect  liberty  and  perfect  carelessness.  So,  whether  the 
dweller  by  the  sea  go  inland  for  his  summer  play,  or  the  resi- 
dent of  the  inland  city  go  to  the  sea,  he  should  seek  some 
spot  unvisited  by  those  devoted  to  fashionable  display,  and 
pass  his  time  in  unrestricted  communion  with  nature,  and  in 
those  pursuits  and  amusements  which,  without  let  or  hinderance, 
perform  the  office  of  recreation. 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  these  hundreds  of  thousands  who 
scatter  out  into  the  country  like  spray  beaten  off  from  the  city 
walls  by  the  waves  of  summer.  The  weary  men  of  study  or 
of  business,  the  tired  women,  the  pale  children — how  they  will 
dream  and  wander  and  rest !  Thousands  of  greedy  eyes  will 
drink  in  the  freshness  and  beauty  of  the  sea  by  day,  and 
sleep  through  its  nightly  lullaby.  They  will  bathe  in  its  waters, 
and  sail  upon  its  bosom,  and  live  and  grow  strong  upon  its 
treasured  life.  Other  thousands  will  take  themselves  to  some 
quiet  country  village,  with  pleasant  social  surroundings,  and 
with  village  bells  to  make  Sunday-morning  music  for  them. 
Still  other  thousands  will  climb  the  hills,  or  roam  through  the 
woods.  There  will  be  fishing  by  day  and  floating  for  deer  at 
night  among  the  Adirondacks,  or  among  the  forests  of  Maine. 
Every  inland  and  ocean  steamer  will  bear  some  of  them. 
Every  railroad  train  will  be  used  in  their  service.  It  is  the 
great  play-time  of  city  life.  The  farmer  has  his  rest  and  recre- 
ation in  winter;  the  citizen,  only  in  the  summer. 

While  it  is  pleasant  to  think  of  all  this  play — it  is  sad  to 
think  of  those  who  are  by  necessity  kept  at  home.  For  those 
there  is  the  park,  the  most  beautiful  pleasure-ground  in  the 
world — if  they  will  but  use  it — and  the  bay,  over  which  the 


AMUSEMENTS. 


269 


boats  are  pushing  all  the  time.  An  excursion  is  an  every-day 
affair,  and  the  country  and  the  sea  are  at  the  very  doors  of  us 
all.  And  for  the  poor  children — we  have  seen  what  a  single 
newspaper  has  done  and  can  do  for  them.  The  provision  for 
them  made  once  should  be  made  again  and  again  on  an 
enlarged  scale,  so  that  no  poor,  tired  dweller  on  Manhattan 
Island  may  be  compelled  to  pass  the  summer  without  one  day 
of  freedom  and  privilege  on  the  fresh  sea  or  the  green  and 
odor-breathing  shore. 

NOVEL-READING. 

The  novel  has  become,  for  good  or  for  evil,  the  daily  food 
of  the  civilized  world.  It  is  given  to  youngest  childhood  in 
Mother  Goose  and  other  extravagant  and  grotesque  inven- 
tions, it  is  placed  in  the  hands  of  older  childhood  and  youth 
through  the  distributing  agencies  of  a  hundred  thousand  pub- 
lishing houses  and  Sunday-school  libraries,  and  prepared  for 
the  eyes  of  the  adult  world  by  every  magazine  and  weekly 
newspaper  that  finds  its  way  into  Christian  homes.  Among 
all  peoples  and  all  sorts  of  people,  of  every  age  and  of  every 
religious  and  social  school,  it  is  the  only  universally  accepted 
form  of  literature.  History,  poetry,  philosophy,  science,  social 
ethics  and  religion  are  accepted  respectively  by  classes  of 
readers,  larger  or  smaller ;  but  the  novel  is  read  by  multitudes 
among  all  these  classes,  and  by  the  great  multitudes  outside 
of  them,  who  rarely  look  into  anything  else.  The  serial 
novel  is  now  an  invariable  component  of  the  magazine  in 
America  and  England;  the  French  feuilleton  has  been  so  long 
established  as  to  be  regarded  as  a  necessary  element  in  the 
newspaper;  while  in  Germany,  the  land  of  scholars  and  phi- 
losophers and  scientific  explorers,  the  story-tellers  are  among 
the  most  ingenious  and  prolific  in  the  world. 


270 


E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


It  all  comes  of  the  interest  which  the  human  mind  takes  in 
human  life.  If  history  and  biography  are  less  read  than  the 
novel,  it  is  because  the  life  found  in  them  is  less  interesting  or 
in  a  less  interesting  form.  The  details  of  individual  experience 
and  of  social  life  are  far  more  engaging  to  ordinary  minds 
than  the  proceedings  of  parliaments  and  the  intercourse  of 
nations.  From  these  latter  the  life  of  the  great  masses  is  far 
removed.  The  men  and  women  whom  one  meets  at  a  social 
gathering,  and  the  dramatic  by-play  and  personal  experience 
of  such  an  occasion,  will  absorb  a  multitude  of  minds  far  be- 
yond the  proceedings  of  a  Board  of  Arbitration  that  holds  in 
its  hands  the  relations  of  two  great  nations,  and  possibly  the 
peace  of  the  world. 

The  daily  life  of  the  people  is  not  in  politics,  or  philosophy, 
or  religious  discussion.  They  eat  and  drink,  they  buy  and 
sell,  they  lose  and  gain,  they  love  and  hate,  they  plot  and 
counterplot;  their  lives  are  filled  with  doubts  and  fears  and 
hopes,  and  realizations  or  disappointments  of  hope ;  and  when 
they  read,  they  choose  to  read  of  these.  It  is  in  these  experi- 
ences that  all  classes  meet  on  common  ground,  and  this  is 
the  ground  of  the  novel.  In  truth,  the  novel  is  social  history, 
personal  biography,  religion,  morals,  and  philosophy,  realized 
or  idealized,  all  in  one.  Nay,  more :  it  is  the  only  social 
history  we  have.  If  the  social  history  of  the  last  hundred 
years  in  England  and  America  has  not  been  written  in  the 
novels  of  the  last  fifty,  it  has  not  been  written  at  all.  In  the 
proportion  that  these  novels  have  been  accepted  and  success- 
ful have  their  plots,  characters,  spirit,  properties  and  belong- 
ings been  taken  from  real  life.  There  is  no  form  of  literature 
in  which  the  people  have  been  more  inexorably  determined  to 
have  truthfulness  than  in  that  of  fiction.  History,  under  the 
foul  influence  of  partisanship,  has  often  won  success  by  lying, 


AMUSEMENTS, 


271 


but  fiction  never.  Under  the  inspirations  of  ideality,  it  has 
presented  to  us  some  of  the  very  purest  forms  of  truth  which 
we  possess. 

So  universally  accepted  is  the  novel  that  it  has  become  one 
of  the  favorite  instruments  of  reform.  If  a  great  wrong  is  to 
be  righted,  the  sentiments,  convictions  and  efforts  of  the  peo- 
ple are  directed  against  it  through  the  means  of  a  novel.  It 
is  mightier  to  this  end  than  conventions,  speeches,  editorials 
and  popular  rebellions.  If  a  social  iniquity  is  to  be  uncovered 
that  it  may  be  cured,  the  pen  of  the  novelist  is  the  power  em- 
ployed. The  adventurer,  the  drunkard,  the  libertine,  the 
devotee  of  fashion  and  folly,  are  all  punctured  and  impaled  by 
the  same  instrument,  and  held  up  to  the  condemnation  or  con- 
tempt of  the  world.  At  the  same  time,  we  are  compelled  to 
look  to  our  novels  rather  than  to  our  histories  and  biographies 
for  our  finest  and  purest  idealizations  of  human  character  and 
human  society.  There  is  nothing  more  real  and  nothing  more 
inspiring  in  all  history  and  cognate  literature,  than  the  charac- 
ters which  fiction,  by  the  hands  of  its  masters,  has  presented  to 
the  world. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  church  was  afraid  of  the  novel ; 
and  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  are  bad  novels — novels 
which  ought  not  to  be  read,  and  which  are  read  simply  because 
there  are  people  as  bad  as  the  novels  are ;  but  the  church  itself 
is  now  the  most  industrious  producer  of  the  novel.  It  is  found 
next  to  impossible  to  induce  a  child  to  read  anything  b  it 
stories ;  and  therefore  the  shelves  of  our  Sunday-school  libra- 
ries are  full  of  them.  These  stories  might  be  better,  yet  they 
undoubtedly  contain  the  best  presentation  of  religious  truth 
that  has  been  made  to  the  infantile  mind.  The  pictures  of 
character  and  life  that  are  to  be  found  in  a  multitude  of  these 
books  cannot  fail  of  giving  direction  and  inspiration  to  those 


272 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


for  whom  they  are  painted.  Among  much  that  is  silly  and  pre- 
posterous and  dissipating,  there  is  an  abundance  that  is  whole- 
some and  supremely  valuable.  Religious  novels,  too,  have 
become  a  large  and  tolerably  distinct  class  of  books,  of  very 
wide  acceptance  and  usefulness  in  the  hands  of  men  and  women. 
The  church,  least  of  all  estates,  perhaps,  could  now  afford  to 
dispense  with  the  novel,  because  it  is  found  that  the  novel  will 
be  produced  and  universally  consumed. 

The  trash  that  is  poured  out  by  certain  portions  of  the  press 
will  continue  to  be  produced,  we  suppose,  while  it  finds  a  mar- 
ket. The  regret  is  that  such  stuff  can  find  a  market,  but  tastes 
will  be  crude  and  morals  low  in  this  imperfect  world  for  some 
time  to  come.  Let  us  be  comforted  in  the  fact  that  sensuality 
tires,  that  there  is  education  indirect  if  not  direct  in  coarse  art, 
and  that  there  will  naturally  come  out  of  this  large  eating  of 
trash  a  desire  for  more  solid  food.  A  long  look  at  the  yellow 
wearies,  and  then  the  eye  asks  for  blue.  If  we  look  back  upon 
our  own  experience,  we  shall  doubtless  find  that  we  demand  a 
very  different  novel  now  from  that  which  formerly  satisfied  or 
fascinated  us,  and  that  we  ourselves  have  passed  through  a 
process  of  development  which  helps  us  to  pronounce  as  trash 
much  that  formerly  pleased  us.  Let  us  hope  for  the  world  that 
which  we  have  realized  for  ourselves. 

WINTER  AMUSEMENTS. 

One  of  the  most  puzzling  questions  which  parents  have  to 
deal  with  is  that  which  relates  to  the  amusements  of  their 
children,  and  especially  of  those  among  them  who  have  reached 
young  manhood  and  young  womanhood.  The  most  of  us  are 
too  apt  to  forget  that  we  have  once  been  young,  and  that, 
while  we  are  tired  enough  with  our  daily  work  to  enjoy  our 
evenings  in  quiet  by  our  firesides,  the  young  are  overflowing 


AMUSEMENTS. 


273 


with  vitality,  which  must  have  vent  somewhere.  The  girls  and 
young  women  particularly,  who  cannot  join  in  the  rough  sports 
of  the  boys,  have,  as  a  rule,  a  pretty  slow  time  of  it.  They  go 
to  parties  when  invited ;  but  parties  are  all  alike,  and  soon  be- 
come a  bore.  A  healthy  social  life  does  not  consist  in  packing 
five  hundred  people  in  a  box,  feeding  them  with  ices,  and 
sending  them  home  with  aching  limbs,  aching  eyes,  and  a 
first-class  chance  for  diphtheria.  But  the  young  must  have 
social  life.  They  must  have  it  regularly;  and  how  to  have  it 
satisfactorily — with  freedom,  without  danger  to  health  of  body 
and  soul,  with  intellectual  stimulus  and  growth — is  really  one 
of  the  most  important  of  social  questions. 

It  is  not  generally  the  boy  and  the  girl  who  spend  their  days 
in  school  who  need  outside  amusement  or  society.  They  get 
it,  in  large  measure,  among  their  companions,  during  the  day ; 
and,  as  their  evenings  are  short,  they  get  along  very  comfort- 
ably with  their  little  games  and  their  recreative  reading.  It  is 
the  young  woman  who  has  left  school  and  the  young  man 
who  is  preparing  for  life,  in  office  or  counting-room,  in  the 
shop  or  on  the  farm,  who  need  social  recreation  which  will 
give  significance  to  their  lives,  and,  at  the  same  time,  culture 
to  their  minds.  If  they  fail  to  unite  culture  with  their  rec- 
reations, they  never  get  it.  It  is  not  harsh  to  say  that  nine 
young  men  in  every  ten  go  into  life  without  any  culture.  The 
girls  do  better,  because,  first,  they  take  to  it  more  naturally, 
and,  second,  because,  in  the  absence  of  other  worthy  objects  of 
life,  this  is  always  before  them  and  always  attainable.  The. 
great  point,  then,  is  to  unite  culture  with  amusement  and 
social  enjoyment.  Dancing  and  kindred  amusements  are 
well  enough  in  their  time  and  way,  but  they  are  childish* 
There  must  be  something  better;  there  is  something  better. 

It  is  an  easy  thing  to  establish,  either  in  country  or  city 
18 


274 


EVERY  DAY  TOPICS. 


neighborhoods,  the  reading-club.  Twenty-five  young  men 
and  women  of  congenial  tastes,  habits,  and  social  belongings 
can  easily  meet  in  one  another's  houses,  once  during  every 
week,  through  five  or  six  months  of  the  year.  With  a  small 
fund  they  can  buy  good  books,  and,  over  these,  read  aloud  by 
one  and  another  of  their  number,  they  can  spend  an  hour  and 
a  half  most  pleasantly  and  profitably.  They  will  find  in  these 
books  topics  of  conversation  for  the  remainder  of  the  time 
they  spend  together.  If  they  can  illuminate  the  evening  with 
music,  all  the  better.  Whatever  accomplishments  may  be  in 
the  possession  of  different  members  of  the  club  may  be  drawn 
upon  to  give  variety  to  the  interest  of  the  occasion.  This  is 
entirely  practicable,  everywhere.  It  is  more  profitable  than 
amateur  theatricals,  and  less  exhaustive  of  time  and  energy. 
It  can  be  united  with  almost  any  literary  object.  The  "  Shak- 
spere-Club"  is  nothing  but  a  reading-club,  devoted  to  the 
study  of  a  single  author;  and  Shakspere  may  well  engage  a 
club  for  a  single  winter.  Such  a  club  would  cultivate  the  art 
of  good  reading,  which  is  one  of  the  best  and  most  useful  of 
all  accomplishments.  It  would  cultivate  thought,  imagination, 
taste.  In  brief,  the  whole  tendency  of  the  reading-club  is  to- 
ward culture — the  one  thing,  notwithstanding  all  our  educa- 
tional advantages,  the  most  deplorably  lacking  in  the  average 
American  man  and  woman. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  popular  lecture  was  a  source  not 
only  of  amusement  but  of  culture — when  it  stimulated  thought, 
developed  healthy  opinion,  conveyed  instruction,  and  elevated 
the  taste.  The  golden  days  when  Sumner,  Everett  and 
Holmes,  Starr  King  and  Professor  Mitchell,  Bishop  Hunting- 
ton  and  Bishop  Clark,  Beecher  and  Chapin,  Emerson,  Curtis, 
Taylor  and  Phillips,  were  all  actively  in  the  field,  were  days 
of  genuine  progress.  Few  better  things  could  happen  to  the 


AMUSEMENTS.         .  275 

American  people  than  the  return  of  such  days  as  those  were ; 
and  the  "  lecture  system,"  as  it  has  been  called,  is  declining  in 
its  usefulness  and  interest,  simply  because  it  has  not  men  like 
these  to  give  it  tone  and  value.  A  few  of  the  old  set  linger  in 
the  field,  but  death,  old  age,  and  absorbing  pursuits  have  with- 
drawn the  most  of  them.  The  platform  is  not  what  it  was. 
The  literary  trifler,  the  theatrical  reader,  the  second  or  third 
rate  concert,  have  dislodged  the  reliable  lecture-goers ;  and  the 
popular  lecture  will  certainly  be  killed  if  bad  management  can 
kill  it.  The  standard  has  not  been  raised  or  even  maintained; 
it  has  been  lowered — lowered  specially,  and  with  direct  pur- 
pose, to  meet  the  tastes  of  the  vulgar  crowd. 

Well,  the  young  people,  in  whose  hands  the  "  lecture  sys- 
tem "  has  always  been,  can  mend  all  this,  if  they  consider  it 
worth  the  pains.  Certainly,  the  coming  into  contact  with  a 
thoroughly  vitalized  man  of  brains  is  a  very  stimulating  experi- 
ence. The  privilege  of  doing  so  should  not  be  lightly  relin- 
quished ;  and,  whenever  a  course  of  lectures  is  well  conducted, 
it  ought  to  meet  with  a  generous  patronage  from  all  who  have 
young  people  on  their  hands  to  be  entertained  and  improved. 

But  even  the  lecture,  desirable  as  it  is,  is  not  necessary.  In 
a  city  like  New  York,  there  ought  to  be  five  hundred  clubs  of 
young  people,  established  for  the  purposes  of  social  and  intel- 
lectual amusement,  with  culture  in  view  as  the  great  ultimate 
end.  The  exercises-  may  take  a  great  many  forms  which  it  is 
not  necessary  for  us  even  to  suggest.  Books  may  be  read, 
original  papers  may  be  presented,  musical  rehearsals  may  form 
a  part  of  the  entertainment,  products  of  art  may  be  exhib- 
ited, there  may  be  dramatic  and  conversational  practice,  and 
practice  in  French  and  German.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  vari- 
ety of  exercises  that  may  be  profitably  entered  upon.  And 
what  is  good  for  the  young  people  of  the  great  cities  will  be  jusl 
as  good  for  young  people  everywhere. 


276  £  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

A  WORD  FOR  OUR  WANDERERS. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  private,  and  a  measure  of  public 
fault-finding  with  the  fact  that  multitudes  of  our  American 
people  go  abroad  to  spend  their  time  and  money.  We  have 
forgotten  the  number  of  millions  which  it  is  calculated  are 
spent  in  going  up  and  down,  and  walking  to  and  fro,  in  Eu- 
rope— frittered  away  on  gewgaws,  invested  in  silks  which 
neither  pay  a  revenue  to  the  Government  nor  a  profit  to  the 
American  shop-keepers,  expended  on  foreign  steamers  in  the 
outward  and  homeward  passages,  etc.,  etc.  -  It  never  occurs  to 
the  growlers,  we  presume,  that  we  are  getting  from  the  other 
side,"  all  the  time,  more  than  we  send  over  there.  In  the  first 
place,  there  are  always  here,  with  annually  increasing  numbers, 
a  considerable  throng  of  tourists  who  spend  liberally.  They  are 
nearly  all  of  the  richer  class;  for  America  is  not  a  country  in 
which  a  foreigner  can  live  more  cheaply  than  he  can  at  home. 
Of  course  this  class  cannot  offset  the  throng  we  annually  send 
to  Europe  and  steadily  support  there,  but  every  incoming  ves- 
sel brings  its  tribute  of  immigrants,  who  come  here  to  remain. 
We  have  no  statistics,  but  it  must  be  true  that  these,  who  bring 
all  their  worldly  possessions,  import,  in  the  aggregate,  an 
amount  far  surpassing  what  we  export  among  our  travelers. 
We  send  by  fifties,  they  come  by  thousands.  They  come  with 
their  little  hoards  accumulated  through  frugal  generations,  and 
these  little  hoards  amount,  in  a  single  year,  to  a  very  large  sum. 
But  they  bring  something  better  than  money — life  and  indus- 
try. Every  man  and  woman,  as  a  rule,  is  an  addition  to  the 
productive  capital  of  the  country.  How  incalculably  large 
have  bee'A  the  contributions  of  the  immigrant  to  the  wealth, 
the  greatness,  and  the  comfort  of  America!  The  immigrant 
has  dug  all  our  canals,  built  all  our  railroads,  and  been  the 
burden-bearer  in  all  enterprises  requiring  brawn  and  bone, 


AMUSEMENTS. 


277 


There  are  nine  chances  in  ten  that  the  person  who  cooks  what 
we  eat,  waits  upon  us  at  table,  milks  the  cow,  hoes  the  corn, 
drives  the  coach,  grooms  the  horse,  mows  the  hay,  mans  the 
vessel,  digs  the  ditch,  spins  the  cotton,  washes  the  clothes  and 
makes  the  bed,  is  a  foreigner.  Indeed,  it  is  more  than  proba- 
ble that  a  full  moiety  of  all  the  money  which  Americans  spend 
abroad  is  won  from  the  profits  on  foreign  labor.  It  is  well 
enough  to  remember  this,  and  not  to  grudge  the  money  which 
buys  abroad  so  much  pleasure,  instruction,  and  health  for  our 
weary  and  over-worked  people. 

There  is  another  class  of  fault-finders  who  have  their  little 
fling  at  the  wanderers — a  fling  somewhat  worn  by  long  use, 
but  still  quite  effective  when  employed  against,  or  among,  the 
thoughtless.  The  stay-at-homes  need  something,  of  course,  to 
console  them,  and  to  keep  themselves  in  countenance ;  and 
we  hear  from  their  wise  lips  such  utterances  as  these:  "They 
had  much  better  stay  at  home  and  travel  in  their  own  country 
than  to  go  to  Europe."  "I  should  be  ashamed  to  go  to 
Europe  until  I  had  seen  something  of  America."  "If  I 
hadn't  seen  Niagara,  or  the  Mammoth  Cave,  or  the  Mississippi 
River,  I  should  be  ashamed  to  travel  abroad."  Any  one 
of  these  wise  statements,  flung  at  a  man's  head,  is  regarded  as 
sufficient  to  settle  him  if  he  is  a  wanderer  abroad,  and  happens 
not  to  have  been  a  great  traveler  at  home.  It  is  supposed, 
indeed,  to  decide  the  whole  matter — to  condemn  the  man 
who  travels  into  foreign  lands,  and  justify  the  man  who  sticks 
to  his  own  door-yard  and  does  not  travel  anywhere. 

Well,  travel  in  one's  own  country  is  very  desirable,  if  a  man 
has  the  time  and  can  afford  the  expense  and  the  hardship  ;  but 
for  a  New  Yorker  to  go  to  Niagara  involves  the  travel  of  nine 
hundred  miles  out  and  back  by  rail.  To  see  Chicago  or  any 
of  the  Western  cities  costs  two  thousand  miles  of  travel.  To 


2 7 8  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

see  the  Yosemite  involves  six  thousand  miles  of  travel.  There 
is  not  a  great  object  of  natural  interest  in  the  country  a  sight 
of  which  does  not  cost  a  great  deal  of  money  and  a  great  deal 
of  fatigue.  To  go  to  the  Far  West,  to  climb  the  Colorado 
Mountains,  or  to  visit  any  of  the  great  objects  of  natural  curi- 
osity in  that  region,  involves  hardship  that  ladies  particularly, 
unless  exceptionally  rugged,  cannot  endure  at  all.  And  when 
we  have  seen  all,  what  have  we  seen  ?  Grand  things,  to  be 
sure — wonderful  works  of  nature — and  nothing  else.  Our 
cities  are  new,  and  with  a  brief  history,  confined  almost  en- 
tirely to  the  details  of  their  quick  material  development.  We 
see  everywhere  the  beginnings  of  the  life  of  a  great  nation, 
and  they  bear  a  striking  resemblance  to  each  other. 

Now,  when  a  man  finds  himself  with  money  to  spend,  he 
likes  to  go  where  he  can  get  the  most  for  it.  He  takes  him- 
self and  his  family  to  Europe,  and  finds  himself  everywhere 
on  historic  ground.  He  can  hardly  travel  twenty-five  miles 
without  meeting  with  something — some  majestic  river,  some 
castle,  some  old  cathedral,  some  gallery  of  art,  some  palace, 
some  ancient  battle-ground — which  charms  his  attention.  To 
the  traveler,  London  is  a  vast  store-house  of  historic  associa- 
tions. Cheapside,  the  Strand,  Piccadilly,  Threadneedle  street 
— all  these  are  names  just  as  familiar  to  him  as  Broadway; 
and  a  hundred  names  of  literary  men,  statesmen,  poets,  phi- 
losophers, are  associated  with  them.  Westminster  Abbey  is  a 
place  to  meditate  and  weep  in.  To  sit  down  in  this  stately 
and  hallowed  pile  is  to  sit  down  with  the  worthiest  of  fifty 
generations.  The  Tower,  the  great  Museum,  the  picture  gal- 
leries, the  ten  thousand  other  objects  of  interest,  compel  the 
traveler  to  feel  that  he  is  in  another  world,  to  whose  wealth 
almost  countless  generations  have  contributed.  Scotland  is 
like  fairy -land  to  him.  He  walks  over  the  territory  where  Sir 
Walter  walked.  His  lungs  inhale  the  same  air,  his  eyes  look 


AMUSEMENTS. 


279 


upon  the  same  hills,  and  valleys,  and  streams  that  inspired  the 
Wizard.  He  crosses  the  Channel  into  sunny  France,  the  land 
of  the  vine.  He  finds  a  new  people,  with  another  language, 
other  traditions,  another  civilization.  He  reaches  its  beautiful 
capital,  visits  its  wonderful  churches,  traverses  the  Louvre  day 
after  day  until  his  mind  is  surfeited  with  beauty,  mingles  with 
the  gay  life  upon  the  Champs  Elysees  and  the  Boulevards, 
rides  in  the  Bois,  goes  to  Fontainebleau  and  Versailles  and  all 
the  beautiful  environs,  no  one  of  which  is  without  its  special 
historic  interest,  or  its  treasury  of  art  or  architecture. 

From  France  he  goes  to  Switzerland,  a  country  containing 
the  most  interesting  natural  scenery,  perhaps,  in  the  world, 
and  all  fitted  up  for  exhibition.  The  smoothest  roads  sweep 
over  the  highest  mountain-passes.  There  are  guides  ready 
and  competent  for  every  possible  expedition;  mules  saddled 
and  bridled,  and  ready  to  bear  the  traveler  anywhere.  The 
hotels  are  perfection,  and  every  provision  is  made  for  comfort. 
There  are  thousands  of  travelers,  representing  all  nationalities, 
who  are  never- failing  subjects  of  interest  and  amusement. 
And  there  are  the  Matterhorn,  and  the  Jungfrau,  and  Mont 
Blanc!  There  is  but  one  Switzerland  in  the  world.  One  can 
stand  in  its  sunny  vineyards  and  gaze  upon  fields  of  ever- 
lasting snow.  One  can  sit  in  the  comfort  or  luxury  of  his  ho- 
tel, and  watch  the  mountains  as  they  change  at  sunset  from 
jagged  brown  and  shining  white  to  purple  cloud,  and  from 
purple  cloud  to  some  celestial  semblance  of  a  cloud,  until  he 
feels  that  he  has  reached  the  spiritual  meaning  of  it  all,  and 
has  learned  something  of  the  secrets  of  the  other  world. 

From  Switzerland  he  goes  to  Italy.  He  lingers  among  the 
lakes,  he  pauses  in  Genoa,  climbs  the  tower  at  Pisa,  sails 
some  bright  morning  into  the  Bay  of  Naples,  with  Vesuvius 
smoking  on  his  right,  and  the  beautiful  city  fronting  him  like 
a  vision  of  heaven,  after  the  long  tossing  on  the  bosom  of  a 


2 So  £ VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

bluer  Mediterranean  than  he  ever  before  dreamed  of.  He 
visits  Pompeii  asleep  on  one  side  of  the  bay,  and  Baiae,  the 
old  watering-place  of  the  Romans,  quite  as  soundly  asleep  on 
the  other.  He  eats  oranges  in  Sorrento,  and  wishes  he  could 
stay  there  forever ;  and  then  he  goes  to  Rome — to  St.  Peter's, 
to  the  galleries,  to  the  Coliseum,  to  the  marvelous  churches,  to 
the  Catacombs,  and  finds  that  it  would  take  years  to  exhaust 
what  it  holds  for  him  of  interest  and  instruction.  He  glides  in 
the  moonlight  over  the  grand  canal  in  Venice,  wanders  through 
the  Doge's  palace,  mounts  the  Campanile,  and  thinks  by  day 
and  dreams  by  night  of  the  old  life,  the  old  commerce,  the  old 
and  dying  civilization.  He  visits  the  marble-flowering  gar- 
den at  Milan,  passing  beautiful  old  cities,  always  leaving  be- 
hind unseen  more  than  he  sees,  and  still  he  has  all  Germany, 
Russia,  Norway,  Sweden,  Austria,  and  Spain  left. 

But  he  has  spent  a  year,  and  got  more  pleasure  for  his 
money,  more  priceless  memories,  more  useful  knowledge, 
more  culture  in  language,  and  manners,  and  art  than  it  would 
be  possible  for  him  to  get  at  home  in  fifty  years,  This  may 
be  "treason;"  and,  if  it  is,  we  hope  it  will  be  "made  the 
most  of. "  The  truth  is,  our  country  is  young.  Our  architect- 
ure is  new  and  raw,  our  galleries  of  art  are  yet  to  be  created, 
and  nothing  among  us  has  retired  so  far  into  the  past  that  a 
halo  of  romance  has  gathered  over  it.  To  stand  in  a  foreign 
church  or  cathedral,  and  remember  that  it  was  old  when  our 
country  was  discovered,  is  to  realize  how  young  our  nation  is. 
It  is  not  natural  scenery  that  our  wanderers  go  to  see,  though 
that  is  not  lacking.  It  is  the  objects  of  human  interest 
that  they  seek — the  records  of  old  civilization  with  which  every 
city  is  crowded,  and  which  look  down  from  pathetic  ruins  or 
time-defying  towers,  from  every  hill-top  and  mountain.  The 
tide  of  foreign  travel  cannot  be  diverted  from  these  by  all  the 
croaking  in  the  world,  and  ought  not  to  be. 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION. 

THE  LIQUOR  INTEREST. 

Tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  the  boys  are  marching :  how  many 
of  them  ?  Sixty  thousand !  Sixty  full  regiments,  every  man 
of  which  will,  before  twelve  months  shall  have  completed 
their  course,  lie  down  in  the  grave  of  a  drunkard !  Every 
year  during  the  past  decade  has  witnessed  the  same  sacrifice ; 
and  sixty  regiments  stand  behind  this  army  ready  to  take  its 
place.  It  is  to  be  recruited  from  our  children  and  our  chil- 
dren's children.  "  Tramp,  tramp,  tramp  " — the  sounds  come 
to  us  in  the  echoes  of  the  footsteps  of  the  army  just  expired ; 
tramp,  tramp,  tramp — the  earth  shakes  with  the  tread  of  the 
host  now  passing :  tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  comes  to  us  from  the 
camp  of  the  recruits.  A  great  tide  of  life  flows  resistlessly  to 
its  death.  What  in  God's  name  are  they  fighting  for  ?  The 
privilege  of  pleasing  an  appetite,  of  conforming  to  a  social 
usage,  of  filling  sixty  thousand  homes  with  shame  and  sorrow, 
of  loading  the  public  with  the  burden  of  pauperism,  of  crowd- 
ing our  prison-houses  with  felons,  of  detracting  from  the  pro- 
ductive industries  of  the  country,  of  ruining  fortunes  and 
breaking  hopes,  of  breeding  disease  and  wretchedness,  of  de- 
stroying both  body  and  soul  in  hell  before  their  time. 

The  prosperity  of  the  liquor  interest,  covering  every  depart- 
ment of  it,  depends  entirely  on  the  maintenance  of  this  army.  It 


282  E.  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

cannot  live  without  it.  It  never  did  live  without  it.  So  long 
as  the  liquor  interest  maintains  its  present  prosperous  condition, 
it  will  cost  America  the  sacrifice  of  sixty  thousand  men  every 
year.  The  effect  is  inseparable  from  the  cause.  The  cost  to 
the  country  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  a  sum  so  stupendous  that 
any  figures  which  we  should  dare  to  give  would  convict  us  of 
trifling.  The  amount  of  life  absolutely  destroyed,  the  amount 
of  industry  sacrificed,  the  amount  of  bread  transformed  into 
poison,  the  shame,  the  unavailing  sorrow,  the  crime,  the  pov- 
erty, the  pauperism,  the  brutality,  the  wild  waste  of  vital  and 
financial  resources,  make  an  aggregate  so  vast — so  incalcula- 
bly vast — that  the  only  wonder  is  that  the  American  people 
do  not  rise  as  one  man  and  declare  that  this  great  curse  shall 
exist  no  longer.  Dilettante  conventions  are  held  on  the  sub- 
ject of  peace,  by  men  and  women  who  find  it  necessary  to 
fiddle  to  keep  themselves  awake.  A  hue-and-cry  is  raised 
about  woman-suffrage,  as  if  any  wrong  which  may  be  involved 
in  woman's  lack  of  the  suffrage  could  be  compared  to  the 
wrongs  attached  to  the  liquor  interest ! 

Does  any  sane  woman  doubt  that  women  are  suffering  a 
thousand  times  more  from  rum  than  from  any  political  dis- 
ability ? 

The  truth  is  that  there  is  no  question  before  the  American 
people  to-day  that  begins  to  match  in  importance  the  tem- 
perance question.  The  question  of  American  slavery  was 
never  anything  but  a  baby  by  the  side  of  this;  and  we  proph- 
esy that  within  ten  years,  if  not  within  five,  the  whole 
country  will  be  awake  to  it,  and  divided  upon  it.  The  organ- 
izations of  the  liquor  interest,  the  vast  funds  at  its  command, 
the  universal  feeling  among  those  whose  business  is  pitted 
against  the  national  prosperity  and  the  public  morals — these 
are  enough  to  show  that,  upon  one  side  of  this  matter,  at  least, 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  283 

the  present  condition  of  things  and  the  social  and  political 
questions  that  lie  in  the  immediate  future  are  apprehended. 
The  liquor  interest  knows  there  is  to  be  a  great  struggle,  and 
is  preparing  to  meet  it.  People  both  in  this  country  and  in 
Great  Britain  are  beginning  to  see  the  enormity  of  this  busi- 
ness— are  beginning  to  realize  that  Christian  civilization  is 
actually  poisoned  at  its  fountain,  and  that  there  can  be  no 
purification  of  it  until  the  source  of  the  poison  is  dried  up. 

The  country  is  to  be  sincerely  congratulated  on  the  fact 
that  the  wine  interest  of  the  United  States  does  not  promise 
much.  Little  native  wine,  after  all  our  painstaking,  finds  its 
way  to  a  gentleman's  table.  The  California  wines  are  a  dis- 
appointment and  a  failure,  and  the  Western  wines  are  the 
same.  Neither  the  dry  nor  the  sparkling  Catawba  takes  the 
place  of  anything  imported.  They  are  not  popular  wines,  and 
we  congratulate  the  country  that  they  never  can  be.  The 
lager  beer  interest  is  endeavoring,  in  convention,  to  separate 
itself  from  the  whisky  interest,  claiming  to  be  holier  and  more 
respectable  than  that.  They  are  all  to  be  lumped  together. .  They 
are  all  opposed  to  sobriety,  and,  in  the  end,  we  shall  find  them 
all  fighting  side  by  side  for  existence  against  the  determined 
indignation  of  a  long-suffering  people. 

A  respectable  English  magazine  reports,  as  a  fact  of  encour- 
aging moment,  that  of  the  fifty  thousand  clergymen  of  the 
Church  of  England  as  many  as  four  thousand  actually  abstain 
from  the  use  of  spirits !  So,  eleven-twelfths  of  the  clergymen 
of  the  English  Church  consent  to  be  dumb  dogs  on  the  tem- 
perance question !  How  large  the  proportion  of  wine-drinking 
clergymen  may  be  in  this  country  we  do  not  know,  but  we  do 
know  that  a  wine-glass  stops  the  mouth  on  the  subject  of  tem- 
perance, whoever  may  hold  it.  A  wine-drinking  clergyman  is 
a  soldier  disarmed.  He  is  not  only  not  worth  a  straw  in  the 


2  84  E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

fight;  he  is  a  part  of  the  impedimenta  of  the  temperance  army. 
We  have  a  good  many  such  to  carry,  who  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  themselves,  and  who  very  soon  will  be.  Temperance  laws 
are  being  passed  by  the  various  Legislatures,  which  they  must 
sustain,  or  go  over,  soul  and  body,  to  the  liquor  interest  and 
influence.  Steps  are  being  taken  on  behalf  of  the  public 
health,  morals,  and  prosperity,  which  they  must  approve  by 
voice  and  act,  or  they  must  consent  to  be  left  behind  and  left 
out.  There  can  be  no  concession  and  no  compromise  on  the 
part  of  temperance  men,  and  no  quarter  to  the  foe.  The  great 
curse  of  our  country  and  our  race  must  be  destroyed. 

Meantime,  the  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  sounds  on, — the  tramp 
of  sixty  thousand  yearly  victims.  Some  are  besotted  and  stu- 
pid, some  are  wild  with  hilarity  and  dance  along  the  dusty 
way,  some  reel  along  in  pitiful  weakness,  some  wreak  their 
mad  and  murderous  impulses  on  one  another,  or  on  the  help- 
less women  and  children  whose  destinies  are  united  to  theirs, 
some  stop  in  wayside  debaucheries  and  infamies  for  a  moment, 
some  go  bound  in  chains  from  which  they  seek  in  vain  to 
wrench  their  bleeding  wrists,  and  all  are  poisoned  in  body  and 
soul,  and  all  are  doomed  to  death.  Wherever  they  move, 
crime,  poverty,  shame,  wretchedness  and  despair  hover  in  aw- 
ful shadows.  There  is  no  bright  side  to  the  picture.  We 
forget :  there  is  just  one.  The  men  who  make  this  army  get 
rich.  Their  children  are  robed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and 
live  upon  dainties.  Some  of  them  are  regarded  as  respectable 
members  of  society,  and  they  hold  conventions  to  protect  their 
interests  !  Still  the  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  goes  on,  and  before 
this  article  can  see  the  light,  five  thousand  more  of  our  poi- 
soned army  will  have  hidden  their  shame  and  disgrace  in  the 
grave. 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  285 

THE  DELUSIONS  OF  DRINK. 

King  Solomon  has  the  credit  of  being  the  wisest  man  that 
ever  lived :  and  he  declared  that  he  who  is  deceived  by  wine, 
the  mocker,  and  strong  drink,  the  raging,  is  not  wise.  The  de- 
lusions of  drink  are  as  old  as  drink  itself,  and  are  as  prevalent 
now  as  in  Solomon's  time.  There  are  men  who  honestly  be- 
lieve that  alcoholic  drink  is  good  for  them ;  yet  there  is  not 
one  of  them  who  would  touch  it  except  as  a  prescribed  med- 
icine if  it  were  not  for  its  pleasant  taste.  The  delusion  touch- 
ing its  healthfulness  grows  out  of  the  desire  to  justify  an 
appetite  which  may  either  be  natural  or  acquired.  If  a  man 
likes  whisky  or  wine,  lie  likes  to  think  that  it  is  good  for  him, 
and  he  will  take  some  pains  to  prove  that  it  is  so,  both  to 
himself  and  others. 

Now,  alcohol  is  a  pure  stimulant.  There  is  not  so  much 
nutriment  in  it  as  there  is  in  a  chip.  It  never  added  anything 
to  the  permanent  forces  of  life,  and  never  can  add  anything. 
Its  momentary  intensification  of  force  is  a  permanent  abstrac- 
tion of  force  from  the  drinker's  capital  stock.  All  artificial 
excitants  bring  exhaustion.  The  physicians  know  this,  and  the 
simplest  man's  reason  is  quite  capable  of  comprehending  it. 
If  any  man  supposes  that  daily  drink,  even  in  small  quantities, 
is  conducive  to  his  health,  he  is  deluded.  If  he  possesses  a 
sluggish  temperament,  he  may  be  able  to  carry  his  burden 
without  much  apparent  harm,  but  burden  it  is,  and  burden  it 
will  always  be. 

After  a  man  has  continued  moderate  drinking  long  enough, 
then  comes  a  change — a  demand  for  more  drink.  The  old 
quantity  does  not  suffice.  The  powers  which  have  been 
insensibly  undermined,  clamor,  under  the  pressure  of  business, 
for  increased  stimulation.  It  is  applied,  and  the  machine 
starts  off  grandly ;  the  man  feels  strong,  his  form  grows  portly, 


286  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

and  he  works  under  constant  pressure.  Now  he  is  in  a  con- 
dition of  great  danger,  but  the  delusion  is  upon  him  that  he  is 
in  no  danger  at  all.  At  last,  however,  drink  begins  to  take 
the  place  of  food.  His  appetite  grows  feeble  and  fitful.  He 
lives  on  his  drink,  and,  of  course,  there  is  but  one  end  to  this 
— viz. :  death !  It  may  come  suddenly,  through  the  collapse 
of  all  his  powers,  or  through  paralysis,  or  it  may  come  slowly 
through  atrophy  and  emaciation.  His  friends  see  that  he  is 
killing  himself,  but  he  cannot  see  it  at  all.  He  walks  in  a 
delusion  from  his  early  manhood  to  his  death. 

A  few  weeks  ago  one  of  our  city  physicians  publicly  read  a 
paper  on  the  drinking  habits  of  women.  It  was  a  thoughtful 
paper,  based  on  a  competent  knowledge  of  facts.  It  ought  to 
have  been  of  great  use  to  those  women  of  the  city  who  are  ex- 
posed to  the  dangers  it  portrayed,  and  especially  to  those  who 
have  acquired  the  habits  it  condemned.  Soon  afterward  there 
appeared  in  the  columns  of  a  daily  paper  a  protest  from  a 
writer  who  ought  to  be  a  good  deal  more  intelligent  than  he  is, 
against  the  doctor's  conclusions.  The  health  and  physique  of 
the  beer-drinking  Englishwoman  were  placed  over  against  the 
health  and  physique  of  the  water-drinking  American  women, 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter.  The  man  is  deluded.  It  is 
not  a  year  since  Sir  Henry  Thompson,  one  of  the  most  eminent 
medical  men  in  England, — a  man  notoriously  beyond  the  reach 
of  any  purely  Christian  considerations, — declared  against  the 
beer-drinking  of  England  on  strictly  sanitary  grounds.  Our 
litterateur  declares  that  the  Englishwoman  can  outwalk  her 
American  sister.  That  depends  entirely  upon  the  period  of 
life  when  the  task  is  undertaken.  The  typical  Englishwoman 
who  has  stood  by  the  beer  diet  until  she  is  more  than  forty 
years  old,  is  too  fat  to  walk  anywhere  easily  out  of  doors,  or 
gracefully  within. 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  287 

During  our  late  civil  war  this  matter  of  drinking  for  health's 
sake  was  thoroughly  tried.  A  stock  of  experience  and  obser- 
vation was  acquired  that  ought  to  have  lasted  for  a  century. 
Again  and  again,  thousands  and  thousands  of  times,  was  it 
proved  that  the  man  who  drank  nothing  was  the  better  man. 
He  endured  more,  he  fought  better,  he  came  out  of  the  war 
healthier  than  the  man  who  drank.  Nothing  is  more  easily 
demonstrable  than  that  the  liquor  used  by  the  two  armies, 
among  officers  and  men  alike,  was  an  unmitigated  curse  to 
them.  It  disturbed  the  brains  and  vitiated  the  councils  of  the 
officers,  and  debilitated  and  demoralized  the  men.  Yet  all  the 
time  the  delusion  among  officers  and  men  was,  that  there  were 
both  comfort  and  help  in  whisky. 

The  delusions  of  drink  are  numberless,  but  there  is  one  of 
them  which  stands  in  the  way  of  reform  so  decidedly  that  it 
calls  for  decided  treatment.  We  allude  to  the  notion  that  it  is 
a  nice  thing  to  drink  nice  liquors  or  wines  at  one's  home,  to  of- 
fer them  to  one's  friends,  and  to  make  them  minister  to  good 
fellowship  at  every  social  gathering,  while  it  is  a  very  different 
thing  to  drink  bad  liquor,  in  bad  places,  and  in  large  quanti- 
ties. A  man  full  of  good  wine  feels  that  he  has  a  right  to  look 
with  contempt  upon  the  Irishman  wno  is  full  of  bad  whisky. 
It  is  not  a  long  time  since  the  election  of  a  professor  in  a  Brit- 
ish university  was  opposed  solely  on  the  ground  that  he  neith- 
er drank  wine  nor  offered  it  to  his  friends;  and  when,  by  a 
small  majority,  his  election  was  effected,  the  other  professors 
decided  not  to  recognize  him  socially.  There  are  thus  two 
men  whom  these  sticklers  for  wine  despise — viz. :  the  man  who 
gets  drunk  on  bad  liquor,  and  the  man  who  drinks  no  liquor  at 
all.  Indeed,  they  regard  the  latter  with  a  hatred  or  contempt 
which  they  do  not  feel  for  the  poor  drunkard.  The  absolute 
animosity  with  which  many  men  in  society  regard  one  who  is 


2  88  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

conscientiously  opposed  to  wine-drinking,  could  only  spring 
from  a  delusion  in  regard  to  the  real  nature  of  their  own  hab- 
its. The  sensitiveness  of  these  people  on  this  subject,  however, 
shows  that  they  suspect  the  delusion  of  which  they  are  the  vic- 
tims. They  claim  to  be  on  the  side  of  temperance.  They  dep- 
recate drunkenness,  and  really  don't  see  what  is  to  be  done 
about  it.  They  wish  that  men  would  be  more  rational  in 
their  enjoyment  of  the  good  things  of  the  world,  etc. ,  etc. ; 
but  their  eyes  seem  blinded  to  the  fact  that  they  stand  in  the 
way  of  all  reform.  The  horrible  drunkenness  of  the  larger  cit- 
ies of  Great  Britain,  with  which  no  hell  that  America  holds  can 
compare  for  a  moment,  can  never  be  reformed  until  the  drink- 
ing habits  of  the  English  clergy  and  the  English  gentry  are 
reformed.  With  eleven-twelfths  of  the  British  clergy  wine- 
drinkers,  and  water-drinkers  tabooed  in  society,  and  social 
drinking  the  fashion  in  all  the  high  life  of  the  realm,  the  work- 
man will  stand  by  his  gin,  brutality  will  reign  in  its  own  chosen 
centres  undisturbed,  and  those  centres  will  increasingly  become 
what,  to  a  frightful  extent,  they  already  are — festering  sores 
upon  the  body  social,  and  stenches  in  the  nostrils  of  the  world. 
The  habits,  neither  of  Great  Britain  nor  America,  will  be 
improved  until  men  of  influence  in  every  walk  of  life  are  will- 
ing to  dispense  with  their  drinking  customs.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  of  English-speaking  men  go  to  a  drunkard's  grave 
every  year.  There  is  nothing  in  sanitary  considerations  as 
they  relate  to  the  moderate  drinker,  and  surely  nothing  in  the 
pleasures  of  the  moderate  drinker,  to  mitigate  this  curse.  It 
is  all  a  delusion.  The  water-drinker  is  the  healthy  man,  and 
the  happy  man.  Spirits,  wine,  beer,  alcoholic  beverages  of  all 
sorts,  are  a  burden  and  a  bane,  and  there  is  no  place  where  a 
good  man  can  stand  unshadowed  by  a  fatal  delusion,  except 
upon  the  safe  ground  of  total  abstinence.  Until  that  ground 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  289 

is  taken,  and  held,  by  good  men  everywhere,  there  can  be  no 
temperance  reform.  The  wine-drinkers  of  England  and  Amer- 
ica have  the  whisky-drinkers  in  their  keeping.  What  do  they 
propose  to  do  with  them  ? 

THE  WINE  QUESTION  IN  SOCIETY. 

It  is  universally  admitted  among  sensible  and  candid  people 
that  drunkenness  is  the  great  curse  of  our  social  and  national 
life.  It  is  not  characteristically  American,  for  the  same  may 
be  said  with  greater  emphasis  of  the  social  and  national  life 
of  Great  Britain ;  but  it  is  one  of  those  things  about  which 
there  is  no  doubt.  Cholera  and  small-pox  bring  smaller  fatal- 
ity, and  almost  infinitely  smaller  sorrow.  There  are  fathers 
and  mothers,  and  sisters  and  wives,  and  innocent  and  wonder- 
ing children,  within  every  circle  that  embraces  a  hundred  lives, 
who  grieve  to-day  over  some  hopeless  victim  of  the  seductive 
destroyer.  In  the  city  and  in  the  country — North,  East,  South 
and  West — there  are  men  and  women  who  cannot  be  trusted 
with  wine  in  their  hands — men  and  women  who  are  conscious, 
too,  that  they  are  going  to  destruction,  and  who  have  ceased 
to  fight  an  appetite  that  has  the  power  to  transform  every  soul 
and  every  home  it  occupies  into  a  hell.  Oh,  the  wild  prayers 
for  help  that  go  up  from  a  hundred  thousand  despairing  slaves 
of  strong  drink  to-day !  Oh,  the  shame,  the  disappointment, 
the  fear,  the  disgust,  the  awful  pity,  the  mad  protests  that  rise 
from  a  hundred  thousand  homes !  And  still  the  smoke  of  the 
everlasting  torment  rises,  and  still  we  discuss  the  "  wine  ques- 
tion," and  the  "  grape  culture,"  and  live  on  as  if  we  had  no 
share  in  the  responsibility  for  so  much  sin  and  shame  and  suf- 
fering. 

Society  bids  us  furnish  wine  at  our  feasts,  and  we  furnish  it 
just  as  generously  as  if  we  did  not  know  that  a  certain  per- 


2QO 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


centage  of  all  the  men  who  drink  it  will  die  miserable  drunk- 
ards, and  inflict  lives  of  pitiful  suffering  upon  those  who  are 
closely  associated  with  them.  There  are  literally  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  people  in  polite  life  in  America  who  would  not 
dare  to  give  a  dinner,  or  a  party,  without  wine,  notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  in  many  instances  they  can  select  the  very 
guests  who  will  drink  too  much  on  every  occasion  that  gives 
them  an  opportunity.  There  are  old  men  and  women  who 
invite  young  men  to  their  feasts,  whom  they  know  cannot 
drink  the  wine  they  propose  to  furnish  without  danger  to 
themselves  and  disgrace  to  their  companions  and  friends. 
They  do  this  sadly,  often,  but  under  the  compulsions  of  social 
usage.  Now  we  understand  the  power  of  this  influence;  and 
every  sensitive  man  must  feel  it  keenly.  Wine  has  stood  so 
long  as  an  emblem  and  representative  of  good  cheer  and  gen- 
erous hospitality,  that  it  seems  stingy  to  shut  it  away  from  our 
festivities,  and  deny  it  to  our  guests.  Then  again  it  is  so  gen- 
erally offered  at  the  tables  of  our  friends,  and  it  is  so  difficult, 
apparently,  for  those  who  are  accustomed  to  it  to  make  a  din- 
ner without  it,  that  we  hesitate  to  offer  water  to  them.  It  has 
a  niggardly — almost  an  unfriendly-^- deeming;  yet  what  shall  a 
man  do  who  wishes  to  throw  what  influence  he  has  on  the 
side  of  temperance  ? 

The  question  is  not  new.  It  has  been  up  for  an  answer 
every  year  and  every  moment  since  men  thought  or  talked 
about  temperance  at  all.  We  know  of  but  one  answer  to 
make  to  it.  A  man  cannot,  without  stultifying  and  morally 
debasing  himself,  fight  in  public  that  which  he  tolerates  in 
private.  We  have  heard  of  such  things  as  writing  temperance 
addresses  with  a  demijohn  under  the  table;  and  society  has 
learned  by  heart  the  old  talk  against  drinking  too  much— 
"  the  excess  of  the  thing,  you  know  " — by  those  who  have  the 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  2gi 

power  of  drinking  a  little,  but  who  would  sooner  part  with 
their  right  eye  than  with  that  little.  A  man  who  talks  temper- 
ance with  a  wine-glass  in  his  hand  is  simply  trying  to  brace 
himself  so  that  he  can  hold  it  without  shame.  We  do  not 
den}  that  many  men  have  self-control,  or  that  they  can  drink 
wine  through  life  without  suffering,  to  themselves  or  others. 
It  may  seem  hard  that  they  should  be  deprived  of  a  comfort 
or  a  pleasure  because  others  are  less  fortunate  in  their  tempera- 
ment or  their  power  of  will.  But  the  question  is  whether  a 
man  is  willing  to  sell  his  power  to  do  good  to  a  great  multi- 
tude for  a  glass  of  wine  at  dinner.  That  is  the  question  in  its 
plainest  terms.  If  he  is,  then  he  has  very  little  benevolence, 
or  a  very  inadequate  apprehension  of  the  evils  of  intemper- 
ance. 

What  we  need  in  our  metropolitan  society  is  a  declaration 
of  independence.  There  are  a  great  many  good  men  and 
women  in  New  York  who  lament  the  drinking  habits  of  so- 
ciety most  sincerely.  Let  these  all  declare  thfcl  they  will 
minister  no  longer  at  the  social  altars  of  the  great  destroyer. 
Let  them  declare  that  the  indiscriminate  offer  of  wine  at  din- 
ners and  social  assemblies  is  not  only  criminal  but  vulgar,  as 
it  undoubtedly  is.  Let  them  declare  that  for  the  sake  of  the 
young,  the  weak,  the  vicious — for  the  sake  of  personal  char- 
acter, and  family  peace,  and  social  purity,  and  national 
strength — they  will  discard  wine  from  their  feasts  from  this 
time  forth  and  forever,  and  the  work  will  be  done.  Let  them 
declare  that  it  shall  be  vulgar — as  it  undeniably  is — for  a  man 
to  quarrel  with  his  dinner  because  his  host  fails  to  furnish 
wine.  This  can  be  done  now,  and  it  needs  to  be  done  now, 
for  it  is  becoming  every  day  more  difficult  to  do  it.  The 
habit  of  wine-drinking  at  dinner  is  quite  prevalent  already. 
European  travel  is  doing  much  to  make  it  universal;  and  if 


292  EVERY  DAY  TOPICS. 

we  go  on  extending  it  at  the  present  rate,  we  shall  soon  arrive 
at  the  European  indifference  to  the  whole  subject.  There  are 
many  clergymen  in  New  York  who  have  wine  upon  their 
tables  and  who  furnish  it  to  their  guests.  We  keep  no  man's 
conscience,  but  we  are  compelled  to  say  that  they  sell  influence 
at  a  shamefully  cheap  rate.  What  can  they  do  in  the  great 
fight  with  this  tremendous  evil  ?  They  can  do  nothing,  and 
are  counted  upon  to  do  nothing. 

If  the  men  and  women  of  good  society  wish  to  have  less 
drinking  to  excess,  let  them  stop  drinking  moderately.  If 
they  are  not  willing  to  break  off  the  indulgence  of  a  feeble 
appetite  for  the  sake  of  doing  a  great  good  to  a  great  many 
people,  how  can  they  expect  a  poor,  broken-down  wretch  to 
deny  an  appetite  that  is  stronger  than  the  love  of  wife  and 
children,  and  even  life  itself?  The  punishment  for  the  failure 
to  do  duty  in  this  business  is  sickening  to  contemplate.  The 
sacrifice  of  life  and  peace  and  wealth  will  go  on.  Every 
year  younajeien  will  rush  wildly  to  the  devil,  middle-aged 
?.nen  will  booze  away  into  apoplexy,  and  old  men  will  swell 
up  with  the  sweet  person  and  become  disgusting  idiots. 
What  will  become  of  the  women?  We  should  think  that 
they  had  suffered  enough  from  this  evil  to  hold  it  under  ever- 
lasting ban,  yet  there  are  drunken  women  as  well  as  drinking 
clergymen.  Society,  however,  has  a  great  advantage  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  vulgar  for  a  woman  to  drink.  There  are  some 
things  that  a  woman  may  not  do,  and  maintain  her  social 
standing.  Let  her  not  quarrel  with  the  fact  that  society  de- 
mands more  of  her  than  it  does  of  men.  It  is  her  safeguard 
in  many  ways. 

THE  WAY  WE  WASTE. 

One  of  the  facts  brought  prominently  before  the  world  dur- 
ing the  last  few  years  is,  that  France  is  rich.  The  ease  with 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  29? 

which  she  has  recovered  from  the  disastrous  war  with  Prussia, 
and  the  promptness  with  which  she  has  met,  not  only  her 
own,  but  Prussia's  enormous  expenses  in  that  war,  have  sur- 
prised all  her  sister  nations.  Every  poor  man  had  his  hoard 
of  ready  money,  which  he  was  anxious  to  lend  to  the  State. 
How  did  he  get  it  ?  How  did  he  save  it  ?  Why  is  it  that,  in  a 
country  like  ours,  where  wages  are  high  and  the  opportunities 
for  making  money  exceptionally  good,  such  wealth  and  pros- 
perity do  not  exist  ?  These  are  important  questions  at  this 
time  with  all  of  us.  Business  is  low,  industry  is  paralyzed, 
and  the  question  of  bread  stares  multitudes  in  the  face. 

Well,  France  is  an  industrious  nation,  it  is  said.  But  is  not 
ours  an  industrious  nation  too  ?  Is  it  not,  indeed,  one  of  the 
most  hard-working  and  energetic  nations  in  the  world  ?  We 
believe  it  to  be  a  harder-working  nation  than  the  French,  with 
not  only  fewer  holidays,  but  no  holidays  at  all,  and  with  not 
only  less  play,  but  almost  no  play  at  all.  It  is  said,  too,  that 
France  is  a  frugal  nation.  They  probably  have  the  advantage 
of  us  in  this,  yet  to  feed  a  laboring  man  and  to  clothe  a  labor- 
ing man  and  his  family  there  must  be  a  definite,  necessary  ex- 
penditure in  both  countries.  The  difference  in  wages  ought  to 
cover  the  difference  in  expenses,  and  probably  does.  If  the 
American  laborer  spends  twice  as  much,  or  three  times  as 
much,  as  the  French,  he  earns  twice  or  three  times  as  much ; 
yet  the  American  laborer  lays  up  nothing,  while  the  French 
laborer  and  small  farmer  have  money  to  lend  to  their  Govern- 
ment. Their  old  stockings  are  long  and  are  full.  The  wine 
and  the  silk  which  the  French  raise  for  other  countries  must  be 
more  than  counterbalanced  by  our  exported  gold,  cotton,  and 
breadstuffs,  so  that  they  do  not  have  any  advantage  over  us,  as 
a  nation,  in  what  they  sell  to  other  nations  ?  We  shall  have  to 
look  further  than  this  for  the  secret  we  are  after. 


294 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


There  lies  a  book  before  us  written  by  Dr.  William  Har- 
greaves,  entitled,  "  Our  Wasted  Resources."  We  wish  that  the 
politicians  and  political  economists  of  this  country  could  read 
this  book,  and  ponder  well  its  shocking  revelations.  They  are 
revelations  of  criminal  waste — the  expenditure  of  almost  incal- 
culable resources  for  that  which  brings  nothing,  worse  than 
nothing,  in  return.  There  are  multitudes  of  people  who  re- 
gard the  temperance  question  as  one  of  morals  alone.  The 
men  who  drink  say  simply,  "  We  will  drink  what  we  please,  and 
it's  nobody's  business.  You  temperance  men  are  pestilent  fel- 
lows, meddlesome  fellows,  who  obtrude  your  tuppenny  stand- 
ard of  morality  upon  us,  and  we  do  not  want  it,  and  will  not 
accept  it.  Because  you  are  virtuous,  shall  there  be  no  more 
cakes  and  ale  ?  "  Very  well,  let  us  drop  it  as  a  question  of 
morality.  You  will  surely  look  at  it  with  us  as  a  question  of 
national  economy  and  prosperity;  else,  you  can  hardly  regard 
yourselves  as  patriots.  We  have  a  common  interest  in  the  na- 
tional prosperity,  and  we  can  discuss  amicably  any  subject  on 
this  common  ground. 

France  produces  its  own  wine,  and  drinks  mainly  cheap 
wine.  It  is  a  drink  which,  while  it  does  them  no  good,  ac- 
cording to  the  showing  of  their  own  physicians,  does  not  do 
them  harm  enough  to  interfere  with  their  industry.  Their 
drinking  wastes  neither  life  nor  money  as  ours  does,  and  they 
sell  in  value  to  other  countries  more  than  they  drink  them- 
selves. During  the  year  1870,  in  our  own  State  of  New 
York,  there  were  expended  by  consumers,  for  liquor,  more 
than  one  hundred  and  six  millions  of  dollars,  a  sum  which 
amounted  to  nearly  two-thirds  of  all  the  vv^ages  paid  to  labor- 
ers in  agriculture  and  manufactures,  and  to  nearly  twice  as 
much  as  the  receipts  of  all  the  railroads  in  the  State,  the  sum 
of  the  latter  being  between  sixty-eight  and  sixty-nine  millions. 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  395 

The  money  of  our  people  goes  across  the  bar  all  the  time 
faster  than  it  is  crowded  into  the  wickets  of  all  the  railroad 
stations  of  the  State;  and  where  does  it  go  ?  What  is  the  re- 
turn for  it  ?  Diseased  stomachs,  aching  heads,  discouraged 
and  slatternly  homes,  idleness,  gout,  crime,  degradation, 
death.  These,  in  various  measures,  are  exactly  what  we  get 
for  it.  We  gain  of  that  which  is  good,  nothing — no  uplift  in 
morality,  no  increase  of  industry,  no  accession  to  health,  no 
growth  of  prosperity.  Our  State  is  full  of  tramps,  and  every 
one  is  a  drunkard.  There  is  demoralization  everywhere,  in 
consequence  of  this  wasteful  stream  of  fiery  fluid  that  con- 
stantly flows  down  the  open  gullet  of  the  State. 

But  our  State  is  not  alone.  The  liquor  bill  of  Pennsylvania 
during  1870  was  more  than  sixty-five  millions  of  dollars,  a  sum 
equal  to  one-third  of  the  entire  agricultural  product  of  the  State. 
Illinois  paid  more  than  forty-two  millions,  and  Ohio  more  than 
fifty-eight  millions.  Massachusetts  paid  more  than  twenty-five 
millions,  a  sum  equal  to  five-sixths  of  her  agricultural  products, 
while  the  liquor  bill  of  Maine  was  only  about  four  millions  and 
a  quarter.  Mr.  Hargreaves  takes  the  figures  of  Massachusetts 
and  Maine  to  show  how  a  prohibitory  law  does,  after  all,  re- 
duce the  drinking ;  but  it  is  not  our  purpose  to  argue  this  ques- 
tion. 

What  we  desire  to  show  is,  that,  with  an  annual  expenditure 
of  $600,000,000  for  liquors  in  the  United  States — and  all  the 
figures  we  give  are  based  upon  official  statistics — it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  the  times  are  hard  and  people  poor.  Not 
only  this  vast  sum  is  wasted;  not  only  the  capital  invested  is 
diverted  from  good  uses,  and  all  the  industry  involved  in 
production  taken  from  beneficent  pursuits,  but  health,  morality, 
respectability,  industry,  and  life  are  destroyed.  Sixty  thou- 
sand Americans  annually  lie  down  in  a  drunkard's  grave.  It 


296 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


were  better  to  bring  into  the  field  and  shoot  down  sixty  thou- 
sand of  our  young  men  every  year,  than  to  have  them  go 
through  all  the  processes  of  disease,  degradation,  crime,  and 
despair  through  which  they  inevitably  pass. 

With  six  hundred  millions  of  dollars  saved  to  the  country 
annually,  how  long  would  it  take  to  make  these  United  States 
rich  not  only,  but  able  to  meet,  without  disturbance  and  dis- 
tress, the  revulsions  in  business  to  which  all  nations  are  liable  ? 
Here  is  a  question  for  the  statesman  and  the  politician. 
Twenty-five  years  of  absolute  abstinence  from  the  consump- 
tion of  useless,  and  worse  than  useless,  liquors,  would  save  to 
the  country  fifteen  billions  of  dollars,  and  make  us  the  richest 
nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  Not  only  this  sum — beyond 
the  imagination  to  comprehend — would  be  saved,  but  all  the 
abominable  consequences  of  misery,  disease,  disgrace,  crime, 
and  death,  that  would  flow  from  the  consumption  of  such  an 
enormous  amount  of  poisonous  fluids,  would  be  saved.  And 
yet  temperance  men  are  looked  upon  as  disturbers  and  fanat- 
ics !  And  we  are  adjured  not  to  bring  temperance  into  poli- 
tics !  And  this  great,  transcendent  question  of  economy  gets 
the  go-by,  while  we  hug  our  little  issues  for  the  sake  of  party 
and  of  office !  Do  we  not  deserve  adversity  ? 

THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION  AND  THE  PRESS. 

A  very  significant  movement  relating  to  the  temperance 
question  has  been  inaugurated  in  Massachusetts.  Its  special 
suggestiveness  resides  in  the  fact  that  it  originates  with  the 
friends  of  the  Maine  law,  and  is  a  tacit  acknowledgment  of  the 
incompetency  of  that  law  to  fulfill  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
designed.  It  is  now  determined  to  bring  to  the  aid  of  that  law 
the  old  temperance  machinery,  so  long  thrown  into  disuse  by 
the  expectation  that  the  law  would  take  its  place,  and  perfect 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION. 


297 


the  reform  it  had  begun.  We  greet  the  restoration  of  this  ma- 
chinery as  a  good  movement;  but,  while  we  give  it  our  hearty 
approval,  we  cannot  fail  to  remember  that  it  was  found  incom- 
petent of  itself  to  achieve  the  result  at  which  it  aimed.  Wheth- 
er it  will  succeed  better  as  an  auxiliary  to  the  law,  remains  to 
be  seen.  That  it  will  help  somewhat,  we  cannot  doubt;  but 
the  truth  is  that  all  these  spasmodic  and  semi-professional  ef- 
forts at  reform — these  bands,  and  brotherhoods,  and  pledges, 
and  organizations,  and  appeals — have  proved  themselves  to  be 
of  very  little  permanent  usefulness.  After  the  people  had  been 
educated  by  them,  or  had  been  under  their  influence  for  many 
years,  they  relapsed  fearfully  the  moment  these  means  were 
dropped,  and  it  was  undertaken  to  enforce  a  law  whose  effi- 
ciency would  depend  upon  the  public  sentiment  which  they 
had  developed.  After  those  who  had  taken  the  reform  into 
their  hands  had  conscientiously  and  thoroughly  worked  their 
scheme  for  many  years,  they  found,  to  the^r  dismay,  that  not 
enough  of  temperance  sentiment  had  been  developed  to  sus- 
tain for  a  day,  in  efficient  practical  operation,  the  law  which 
was  to  render  all  further  moral  efforts  unnecessary. 

In  our  judgment,  we  must  have  in  this  country  something 
more  and  better  than  Maine  laws,  and  something  more  and 
better  than  temperance  organizations  and  the  stereotyped 
machinery  of  temperance  movements.  Neither  this  law  nor 
this  machinery,  separately  or  in  combination,  has  proved  itself 
sufficient  to  effect  the  desired  reform.  We  believe,  however, 
that  the  reform  is  possible,  that  the  agent  to  effect  it  exists,  and 
that  that  agent  has  already  a  foothold  in  every  intelligent  house 
in  the  land.  We  have  no  question  that  the  press  of  America, 
fully  discharging  its  duty  as  a  censor,  enlightener,  and  educator 
of  the  people,  can  do  more  to  make  the  nation  temperate  in 
five  years  than  all  the  temperance  laws,  lectures,  and  or- 


298 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


ganizations  have  been  able  to  effect  in  twenty-five  years.  Is 
it  not  true,  to-day,  that  not  one  newspaper  in  twenty-five, 
the  country  through,  manifests  a  positive  interest  in  the  tem- 
perance question  and  persistently  casts  its  influence  against 
the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks?  Is  it  not  true  that  there  is  no 
question  of  public  morals  toward  which  the  general  American 
press  is  so  uniformly  indifferent,  and  in  regard  to  which  it  as- 
sumes so  little  responsibility  as  this? 

There  is  a  good  reason  for  this  fact  somewhere — a  sufficient 
one,  at  least,  or  it  would  not  exist.  It  is  not  because  the  edi- 
torial fraternity  are  without  convictions  on  the  subject,  that 
they  say  nothing  about  it.  It  is  not  because  they  are  tipplers 
themselves,  or  because  they  lack  opportunity  of  acquaintance 
with  the  sad  results  of  intemperance.  It  is  mainly  because 
they  have  consented  to  regard  the  question  as  practically  taken 
out  of  their  hands.  Unless  they  have  manifested  entire  wil- 
lingness to  become  the  organs  and  tools  of  the  temperance  or- 
ganizations of  the  country, — to  say  their  words,  push  their 
schemes,  and  advocate  their  measures, — without  question  or  dis- 
crimination— those  organizations  have  chosen  to  regard  them  as 
enemies  of  the  temperance  cause.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
any  set  of  men  to  manifest  greater  bigotry  and  intolerance  to- 
wards all  who  have  seen  fit  to  differ  with  them  on  moral  and 
legal  measures  than  have  characterized  those  zealous  and  thor- 
oughly well-meaning  reformers  who,  through  various  organiza- 
tions, have  assumed  the  custody  and  management  of  this  question. 
Editors  who  have  undertaken  to  discuss  the  question  independ- 
ently— as  they  are  in  the  habit  of  discussing  all  public  questions 
— have  been  snubbed  and  maligned  until  they  have  dropped 
it  in  disgust,  and  turned  the  whole  matter  over  to  those  who 
have  doubted  or  denounced  them.  Editors  have  not  been 
alone  in  this  surrender.  It  is  notorious  that  more  than  one 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  299 

legislature,  in  more  than  one  State,  has  passed  laws  for  the 
suppression  of  intemperance  that  it  had  no  faith  in  whatever, 
because  the  self-appointed  champions  of  the  temperance  reform 
demanded  them,  and  would  have  nothing  else.  It  has  not 
been  safe  for  legislators  to  oppose  the  schemes  of  these  men — 
safe  for  their  reputation  for  sobriety.  It  has  been  assumed  and 
declared  that  all  men  who  were  not  with  them,  in  whatever 
movement  they  chose  to  institute,  were  friends  of  free  rum  and 
the  upholders  of  vice  and  crime.  So  legislators  have  given 
them  their  own  imperious  way,  and  washed  their  hands  of  re- 
sponsibility by  the  consideration  that  temperance  men  had 
"got  what  they  wanted." 

The  time  for  a  new  departure  is  come.  It  is  punctuated  by 
the  shifting  and  uncertain  movements  of  those  who  have 
"  had  their  own  way  "  for  many  years,  and  who  find  themselves 
as  far  from  the  goal  at  which  they  aimed  as  they  were  when 
they  started.  The  press,  independently,  must  take  this  ques- 
tion in  hand,  and  educate  the  people  to  temperance.  The 
truth  is  that  there  is  not  a  country  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
where  stimulants  are  needed  so  little,  and  where  they  are  ca- 
pable of  producing  so  much  mischief,  as  in  our  own.  Our 
sparkling,  sunny  atmosphere,  and  the  myriad  incentives  to 
hope  and  enterprise  in  our  circumstances,  are  stimulants  of 
God's  own  appointment  for  the  American  people.  This  pour- 
ing down  of  intoxicating  liquors  is  ten  thousand  times  worse 
than  waste — it  is  essential  sacrilege.  This  straining  of  the 
nerves,  this  heating  of  the  blood,  this  stimulation  or  stupefac- 
tion of  the  mind,  this  imposition  of  cruel  burdens  upon 'the 
digestive  organs,  is  a  foul  wrong  upon  Nature.  Tens  of  thou- 
sands of  valuable  lives  are  sacrificed  every  year  to  this  Moloch 
of  strong  drink.  The  crime,  the  beggary,  the  disgrace,  the 
sorrow,  the  disappointment,  the  disaster,  the  sickness,  the 


300 


E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


death  that  have  flowed  in  one  uninterrupted  stream  from  the 
bottle  and  the  barrel,  throughout  the  length  of  the  land,  are 
enough  to  make  all  thinking  and  manly  men  curse  their  source 
and  swear  eternal  enmity  to  it.  The  American  people  need 
to  have  it  proved  to  them  that  under  no  circumstances  are  the 
various  forms  of  intoxicating  drink  good  for  them.  They  are 
not  yet  convinced  of  this,  although  they  know,  of  course,  that 
the  abuse  of  drink  brings  all  the  evils  that  can  be  imagined. 
Every  juvenile  periodical,  every  newspaper,  every  magazine, 
every  review,  owes  it  to  the  country  to  teach  this  fact  persist- 
ently. There  has  been  something  in  the  way  in  which  the 
temperance  reform  has  been  pursued  which  has  brought  upon 
it  the  stigma  of  fanaticism.  That  stigma  ought  to  be  ob- 
literated— so  thoroughly  obliterated,  that  the  man  who 
weakly  yields  to  a  degrading  appetite,  or  wantonly  courts 
such  an  appetite,  and  the  danger  and  disgrace  it  brings,  shall 
feel  that  he  bears  a  stigma  which  marks  his  degradation  among 
a  generation  of  clean  and  healthy  men.  In  short,  temperance 
must  be  made  not  only  respectable,  but  fashionable.  The  wine- 
bibber  and  the  beer-drinker,  as  well  as  those  of  stronger 
stomachs  and  coarser  tastes,  must  be  made  to  feel  that  they 
are  socially  disgraced  by  their  habits.  In  the  family,  in  the 
school,  everywhere,  by  all  the  ordinary  means  of  approach  to 
young  and  plastic  minds,  the  virtue  of  temperance  should  be 
inculcated.  It  is  fashionable  for  the  young  to  drink  wine  to- 
day. It  must  not  be  to-morrow;  and  in  order  that  it  may 
not  be,  the  accepted  leaders  of  public  opinion  must  tell  the 
people  the  truth,  and  enforce  upon  the  people  the  obligations 
of  duty.  That  world  of  high  life  which  sends  down  its  pow- 
erful influence  upon  all  the  life  beneath  it  never  was  influenced 
by  professional  temperance  reformers,  or  by  temperance  or- 
ganizations, and  is  not  likely  to  be.  The  clergymen  it  listens 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  301 

to,  the  papers,  and  magazines,  and  books  it  reads,  and  the 
social  authorities  it  respects,  must  inculcate  temperance  until 
it  shall  be  a  shame  to  place  a  wine-bottle  before  a  friend. 

O  Heaven !  for  one  generation  of  clean  and  unpolluted 
men  ! — men  whose  veins  are  not  fed  with  fire ;  men  fit  to  be 
the  companions  of  pure  women;  men  worthy  to  be  the 
fathers  of  children;  men  who  do  not  stumble  upon  the  rock 
of  apoplexy  at  mid-age,  or  go  blindly  groping  and  staggering 
down  into  a  drunkard's  grave,  but  who  can  sit  and  look  upon 
the  faces  of  their  grandchildren  with  eyes  undimmed,  and 
hearts  uncankered.  Such  a  generation  as  this  is  possible  in 
America;  and  to  produce  such  a  generation  as  this,  the  per- 
sistent, conscientious  work  of  the  public  press  is  entirely  com- 
petent, as  an  instrumentality.  The  press  can  do  what  it  will ; 
and  if  it  will  faithfully  do  its  duty,  Maine  laws  will  come  to  be 
things  unthought  of,  and  temperance  reformers  and  temper- 
ance organizations  will  become  extinct. 

RUM  AND  RAILROADS. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  in  these  days  of  the  influence  of 
railroad  corporations  in  public  affairs, — of  their  power  to  con- 
trol large  bodies  of  men  and  shape  the  policy  of  States. 
That  danger  lies  in  this  power,  there  is  no  question.  In  many 
States  it  has  been  the  agent  of  enormous  corruption,  and  in 
some  it  has  lorded  it  over  legislature,  judiciary,  and  executive 
alike.  With  abounding  means  at  its  disposal,  it  has  done 
more  to  corrupt  the  fountains  of  legislation  than  any  other 
interest;  and  more  than  any  other  interest  does  it  need  the 
restraining  and  guiding  hand  of  the  law,  on  behalf  of  the 
popular  service  and  the  popular  virtue. 

There  is  one  influence  of  railroads,  however,  that  has  not 
been  publicly  noticed,  so  far  as  we  know,  and  to  this  we  call 
attention. 


302 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


There  is  an  influence  proceeding  from  the  highest  managing 
man  in  a  railroad  corporation  which  reaches  further,  for  good 
or  evil,  than  that  of  almost  any  other  man  in  any  community. 
If  the  president  or  the  superintendent  of  a  railroad  is  a  man 
of  free  and  easy  social  habits ;  if  he  is  in  the  habit  of  taking 
his  stimulating  glass,  and  it  is  known  that  he  does  so,  his  rail- 
road becomes  a  canal  through  which  a  stream  of  liquor  flows 
from  end  to  end.  A  rum-drinking  head-man,  on  any  railroad, 
reproduces  himself  at  every  post  on  his  line,  as  a  rule.  Grog- 
shops grow  up  around  every  station,  and  for  twenty  miles  on 
both  sides  of  the  iron  track,  and  often  for  a  wider  distance, 
the  people  are  corrupted  in  their  habits  and  morals.  The 
farmers  who  transport  their  produce  to  the  points  of  shipment 
on  the  line,  and  bring  from  the  depots  their  supplies,  suffer  as 
deeply  as  the  servants  of  the  corporations  themselves. 

This  is  no  imaginary  evil.  Every  careful  observer  must 
have  noticed  how  invariably  the  whole  line  of  a  railroad  takes 
its  moral  hue  from  the  leading  man  of  the  corporation. 
Wherever  such  a  man  is  a  free  drinker,  his  men  are  free  drink- 
ers ;  and  it  is  not  in  such  men  persistently  to  discountenance 
a  vice  that  they  persistently  uphold  by  the  practices  of  their 
daily  life.  A  thorough  temperance  man  at  the  head  of  a  rail- 
road corporation  is  a  great  purifier ;  and  his  road  becomes  the 
distributor  of  pure  influences  with  every  load  of  merchandise 
it  bears  through  the  country.  There  is  just  as  wide  a  differ- 
ence in  the  moral  influence  of  railroads  on  the  belts  of  country 
through  which  they  pass  as  there  is  among  men,  and  that 
influence  is  determined  almost  entirely  by  the  managing  man. 
There  are  roads  that  pass  through  none  but  clean,  well-ordered, 
and  thrifty  villages ;  and  there  are  roads  that,  from  one  end 
to  the  other,  give  evidence,  in  every  town  upon  them,  that  the 
devil  of  strong  drink  rules  and  ruins.  The  character  of  ten 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  303 

thousand  towns  and  villages  in  the  United  States  is  determined, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  by  the  character  of  the  men  who 
control  the  railroads  which  pass  through  them.  These  men 
have  so  much  influence,  and,  when  they  are  bad  men,  are  such 
a  shield  and  cover  for  vice,  which  always  keeps  for  them  its  best 
bed  and  its  best  bottle,  that  nothing  seems  competent  to 
neutralize  their  power. 

The  least  that  these  corporations — to  which  the  people  have 
given  such  great  privileges — can  do,  is  to  see  that  such  men 
are  placed  in  charge  as  will  protect  the  people  on  their  lines 
of  road  from  degeneracy  and  ruin.  To  elect  one  man  to  a 
controlling  place  in  a  railway  corporation  whose  social  habits 
are  bad,  is  deliberately,  in  the  light  of  experience  and  of  well- 
established  facts,  to  place  in  every  ticket-office  and  freight- 
office,  and  every  position  of  service  and  trust  on  the  line,  a 
man  who  drinks ;  to  establish  grog-shops  near  every  station ; 
and  to  carry  a  moral  and  industrial  blight  along  the  whole 
line  of  road  whose  affairs  he  administers.  "  Like  master  like 
man ; "  and  like  man  his  companion  and  friend,  wherever  he 
finds  him  in  social  communion. 

WOMEN  AND  WINE. 

Woman  has  never  been  associated  with  wine  without  dis- 
grace and  disaster.  The  toast  and  the  bacchanal  that,  with 
musical  alliteration,  couple  these  two  words,  spring  from  the 
hot  lips  of  sensuality,  and  are  burdened  with  shame.  A  man 
who  can  sing  of  wine  and  women  in  the  same  breath,  is  one 
whose  presence  is  disgrace,  and  whose  touch  is  pollution.  A 
man  who  can  forget  mother  and  sister,  or  wife  and  daughter, 
and  wantonly  engage  in  a  revel  in  which  the  name  of  woman 
is  invoked  to  heighten  the  pleasures  of  the  intoxicating  cup,  is, 
beyond  controversy  and  without  mitigation,  a  beast.  Let  not 


3°4 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


the  name  by  which  we  call  the  pure  and  precious  ones  at 
home  be  brought  in  to  illuminate  a  degrading  feast. 

Of  the  worst  foes  that  woman  has  ever  had  to  encounter, 
wine  stands  at  the  head.  The  appetite  for  strong  drink  in 
man  has  spoiled  the  lives  of  more  women — ruined  more  hopes 
for  them,  scattered  more  fortunes  for  them,  brought  to  them 
more  shame,  sorrow,  and  hardship — than  any  other  evil  that 
lives.  The  country  numbers  tens  of  thousands — nay,  hun- 
dreds of  thousands — of  women  who  are  widows  to-day,  and 
sit  in  hopeless  weeds,  because  their  husbands  have  been  slain 
by  strong  drink.  There  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  homes, 
scattered  all  over  the  land,  in  which  women  live  lives  of  torture, 
going  through  all  the  changes  of  suffering  that  lie  between  the 
extremes  of  fear  and  despair,  because  those  whom  they  love, 
love  wine  better  than  they  do  the  women  whom  they  have 
sworn  to  love.  There  are  women  by  thousands  who  dread  to 
hear  at  the  door  the  step  that  once  thrilled  them  with  pleasure, 
because  that  step  has  learned  to  reel  under  the  influence  of  the 
seductive  poison.  There  are  women  groaning  with  pain,  while 
we  write  these  words,  from  bruises  and  brutalities  inflicted  by 
husbands  made  mad  by  drink.  There  can  be  no  exaggeration 
in  any  statement  made  in  regard  to  this  matter,  because  no 
human  imagination  can  create  anything  worse  than  the  truth, 
and  no  pen  is  capable  of  portraying  the  truth.  The  sorrows 
and  the  horrors  of  a  wife  with  a  drunken  husband,  or  a  mother 
with  a  drunken  son,  are  as  near  the  realization  of  hell  as  can 
be  reached  in  this  world,  at  least.  The  shame,  the  indigna- 
tion, the  sorrow,  the  sense  of  disgrace  for  herself  and  her 
children,  the  poverty, — and  not  unfrequently  the  beggary, — 
the  fear  and  the  fact  of  violence,  the  lingering,  life-long  strug- 
gle and  despair  of  countless  women  with  drunken  husbands, 
are  enough  to  make  all  women  curse  wine,  and  engage 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  ,O5 

unitedly  to  oppose  it  everywhere  as  the  worst  enemy  of  their 
sex. 

And  now  what  do  we  see  on  every  New-Year's  Day  ? 
Women  all  over  the  city  of  New  York — women  here  and 
there  all  over  the  country,  where  like  social  customs  prevail — 
setting  out  upon  their  tables  the  well-filled  decanters  which,  be- 
fore night  shall  close  down,  will  be  emptied  into  the  brains  of 
young  men  and  old  men,  who  will  go  reeling  to  darker  orgies,  or 
to  homes  that  will  feel  ashamed  of  them.  Woman's  lips  will 
give  the  invitation,  woman's  hand  will  fill  and  present  the  glass, 
woman's  careless  voice  will  laugh  at  the  effects  of  the  mis 
chievous  draught  upon  their  friends,  and,  having  done  all  this, 
woman  will  retire  to  balmy  rest,  previously  having  reckoned 
the  number  of  those  to  whom  she  has,  during  the  day,  pre- 
sented a  dangerous  temptation,  and  rejoiced  over  it  in  the 
degree  of  its  magnitude. 

O  woman!  woman!  Is  it  not  about  time  that  this  thing 
were  stopped  ?  Have  you  a  husband,  a  brother,  a  son  ?  Are 
they  stronger  than  their  neighbors  who  have,  one  after  another, 
dropped  into  the  graves  of  drunkards  ?  Look  around  you, 
and  see  the  desolations  that  drink  has  wrought  among  your 
acquaintances,  and  then  decide  whether  you  have  a  right  to 
place  temptation  in  any  man's  way,  or  do  aught  to  make  a 
social  custom  respectable  which  leads  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  men  into  bondage  and  death.  Why  must  the  bottle  come 
out  everywhere  ?  Why  can  there  not  be  a  festal  occasion 
without  this  vulgar  guzzling  of  strong  drink  ? 

Woman,  there  are  some  things  that  you  can  do,  and  this  is 
one :  you  can  make  drinking  unpopular  and  disgraceful  among 
the  young.  You  can  utterly  discountenance  all  drinking  in 
your  own  house,  and  you  can  hold  in  suspicion  every  young 
man  who  touches  the  cup.  You  know  that  no  young  man 
20 


3  o6  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

who  drinks  can  safely  be  trusted  with  the  happiness  of  any 
woman,  and  that  he  is  as  unfit  as  a  man  can  be  for  woman's 
society.  Have  this  understood  :  that  every  young  man  who 
drinks  is  socially  proscribed.  Bring  up  your  children  to 
regard  drinking  as  not  only  dangerous  but  disgraceful.  Place 
temptation  in  no  man's  way.  If  men  will  make  beasts  of 
themselves,  let  them  do  it  in  other  society  than  yours.  If  your 
mercenary  husbands  treat  their  customers  from  private  stores 
kept  in  their  counting-rooms,  shame  them  into  decency  by 
your  regard  for  the  honor  of  your  home.  Recognize  the 
living,  terrible  fact  that  wine  has  always  been,  and  is  to-day, 
the  curse  of  your  sex;  that  it  steals  the  hearts  of  men  away 
from  you,  that  it  dries  up  your  prosperity,  that  it  endangers 
your  safety,  that  it  can  only  bring  you  evil.  If  social  custom 
compels  you  to  present  wine  at  your  feasts,  rebel  against  it, 
and  make  a  social  custom  in  the  interests  of  virtue  and  purity. 
The  matter  is  very  much  in  your  own  hands.  The  women  of 
the  country,  in  what  is  called  polite  society,  can  do  more  to 
make  the  nation  temperate  than  alj  the  legislators  and  tumult- 
uous reformers  that  are  struggling  and  blundering  in  their 
efforts  to  this  end. 

MITIGATING  CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Among  the  various  reasons  assigned  by  those  interested  in 
procuring  the  commutation  of  the  sentence  pronounced  upon 
a  convicted  murderer  in  this  city,  for  demanding  the  executive 
clemency,  we  did  not  see  one  which  was  really  stronger  than 
any  other.  It  is  strange  that  this  was  overlooked  by  both  the 
parties  opposing  each  other  in  this  movement.  In  a  reverend 
gentleman's  letter  to  the  Governor,  we  find  the  statement  that 
the  murderer  was  drunk  when  he  inflicted  the  fatal  blow  upon 
his  victim.  Granting  that  this  was  the  case — for  there  is  no 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  307 

doubt  of  it — the  question  arises  as  to  the  responsibility  for  this 
man's  drunkenness.  To  a  great  and  criminal  extent  the  re- 
sponsibility undoubtedly  rested  upon  him :  but  has  it  occurred 
to  this  community,  which  so  loudly  calls  for  protection  against 
murderous  ruffianism,  that  it  has  consented  to  the  existence  of 
those  conditions  which  all  history  has  proved  make  murder- 
ous ruffianism  certain  ?  There  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that 
every  murderer  now  confined  in  the  Tombs  committed  his 
crime  under  the  direct  or  indirect  influence  of  alcoholic  drinks. 
Either  under  the  immediate  spur  of  the  maddening  poison,  or 
through  the  brutality  engendered  by  its  habitual  use,  the  mur- 
derous impulse  was  born.  It  is  reasonably  doubtful  whether 
one  of  these  criminals  would  have  become  a  criminal  if  whisky 
had  been  beyond  his  reach.  Does  any  one  doubt  this  ?  Let 
him  go  to  the  cells  and  inquire.  If  the  answer  he  gets  is 
different  from  what  we  suggest,  then  the  cases  he  finds  will 
be  strangely  exceptional. 

Now,  who  is  to  blame  for  establishing  and  maintaining  all 
the  conditions  of  danger  to  human  life  through  murder? 
Why,  the  very  community  that  complains  of  the  danger,  and 
calls  for  the  execution  of  the  murderers.  So  long  as  rum  is 
sold  at  every  street  corner,  with  the  license  of  the  popular 
vote,  men  will  drink  themselves  into  brutality,  and  a  percent- 
age of  those  thus  debasing  themselves  will  commit  murder. 
The  sun  is  not  more  certain  to  rise  in  the  morning  than  this 
event  is  to  take  place  under  these  conditions.  Fatal  appetites 
are  bred  under  this  license.  Diseased  stomachs  and  brains 
are  produced  under  it  by  the  thousand.  Wills  are  broken 
down,  and  become  useless  for  all  purposes  of  self-restraint. 
And  all  this  is  done,  let  it  be  remembered,  with  the  consent 
of  the  community,  for  a  certain  price  in  money,  which  the 
community  appropriates  as  a  revenue.  Then,  when  this 


3o8 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


license  produces  its  legitimate  results — results  that  always  at- 
tend such  license,  and  could  have  been  distinctly  foreseen  in 
the  light  of  experience — the  community  lifts  its  hands  in  holy 
horror,  and  clamors  for  the  blood  of  the  murderer  in  order  to 
secure  its  own  safety.  It  never  thinks  of  drying  up  the  fount- 
ain. It  is  easier  to  hang  a  man  than  shut  up  a  grog-shop. 
It  is  easier  to  dry  up  a  life  than  a  revenue.  It  is  easier  to 
choke  a  prisoner  than  a  politician. 

We  are  not  pleading  for  any  murderer's  life.  We  have 
signed  no  petition  for  any  man's«pardon ;  but  we  have  this  to 
say :  that  so  long  as  the  sources  of  drunkenness  are  kept 
open,  the  killing  of  a  murderer  will  have  very  little  effect  in 
staying  the  hand  of  murder,  and  securing  the  safety  of  human 
life.  If  this  is  what  we  are  after  in  seeking  the  execution  of 
the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law,  our  object  will  not  be  reached. 
We  have  this  further  to  say,  that  a  community  knowing  that 
the  traffic  in  alcoholic  liquors  is  sure  to  produce  murderers, 
and  to  render  society  unsafe,  becomes  virtually  an  accomplice 
before  the  fact  of  murder,  and,  therefore,  responsible  for  all 
the  dangers  to  itself  that  lie  in  the  murderous  impulse. 

We  declare,  then,  without  any  qualification,  that  the  attitude 
of  the  community  of  the  city  of  New  York  toward  the  liquor 
traffic,  is  a  mitigating  circumstance  in  the  case  of  nearly  every 
murder  committed  in  it.  Further,  it  is  a  mitigating  circum- 
stance in  the  case  of  nearly  every  brutal  assault,  in  every  case 
of  drunkenness,  and  in  half  the  other  crimes  that  are  commit- 
ted. It  is  through  the  poverty  and  the  shamelessness  and 
immorality  that  come  from  drunkenness  that  our  beggars  and 
thieves  are  produced.  If  we  could  wipe  out  of  existence  all 
the  crimes  and  woes  of  our  city  directly  traceable  to  the 
almost  unrestricted  traffic  in  alcoholic  stimulants  to-day,  the 
city  would  not  know  itself  to-morrow.  The  surprise  experi- 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  309 

enced  by  Mr.  Squeers  at  finding  himself  so  respectable  would 
be  more  than  matched  by  the  surprise  of  a  national  metropolis 
at  finding  itself  redeemed  to  virtue  and  personal  safety. 

And  now  what  will  the  community  do  about  it  ?  Nothing. 
The  wine-bibbers  among  our  first  families  will  sip  at  the  deli- 
cious beverage  among  themselves,  feed  it  to  their  young  men, 
and  nurse  them  into  murderers  and  debauchees,  and  vote  for 
the  license  of  a  traffic  on  which  they  depend  for  their  choicest 
luxuries.  Goodish  men  will  partake  of  it,  for  their  stomach's 
sake  and  for  their  often  infirmities.  The  Frenchman  will  de- 
stroy his  bottle  of  Bordeaux  every  day;  the  German  will 
guzzle  the  lager  that  swells  him  into  a  tight-skinned,  disgust- 
ing barrel ;  and  the  whisky-drinker,  under  the  license  that  all 
these  men  claim  for  themselves,  will  poison  himself,  body  and 
soul,  and  descend  into  a  grave  that  kindly  covers  his  shame, 
or  into  crime  and  pauperism  that  endanger  the  property  and 
life  of  the  city,  or  sap  its  prosperity.  In  the  mean  time  the 
ruffian  or  the  murderer,  acting  under  the  influence  of  his  mad- 
dening draughts,  will  maim  and  kill,  and  the  very  men  who 
helped  him  to  the  conditions  sure  to  develop  the  devil  in  him 
will  clamor  for  his  life. 

DOUBLE  CRIMES  AND  ONE- SIDED  LAWS. 

A  little  four-page  pamphlet  has  recently  fallen  into  our 
hands,  entitled  "  Crimes  of  Legislation."  Who  wrote  it,  or 
where  it  came  from,  we  do  not  know ;  but  it  reveals  a  princi- 
ple so  important  that  it  deserves  more  elaborate  treatment  and 
fuller  illustration.  These  we  propose  to  give  it,  premising, 
simply,  that  the  word  "  crimes  "  is  a  misnomer,  as  it  involves  a 
malicious  design  which  does  not  exist.  "  Mistakes  in  Legisla- 
tion "  would  be  a  better  title. 

There  are  two  classes  of  crimes.     The  first  needs  but  one 


310 


E  VER  Y  DA  Y  7VP1CS. 


actor.  When  a  sneak-thief  enters  a  hall  and  steals  and  carries 
off  an  overcoat,  or  a  man  sits  in  his  counting-room  and  com- 
mits a  forgery,  or  a  ruffian  knocks  a  passenger  down  and  robs 
him,  he  is  guilty  of  a  crime  which  does  not  necessarily  need  a 
confederate  of  any  sort.  The  crime  is  complete  in  itself,  and 
the  single  perpetrator  alone  responsible.  The  second  class  of 
crimes  can  only  be  committed  by  the  consent  or  active  aid  of 
a  confederate.  When  a  man  demands,  in  contravention  of 
the  usury  laws,  an  exorbitant  price  for  the  use  of  money,  his 
crime  cannot  be  complete  without  the  aid  of  the  man  to 
whom  he  lends  his  money.  When  a  man  sells  liquor  contrary 
to  law,  it  involves  the  consent  and  active  co-operation  of  the 
party  to  whom  he  makes  the  sale.  He  could  not  possibly  break 
the  law  without  aid.  The  same  fact  exists  in  regard  to  a  large 
number  of  crimes.  They  are  two-sided  crimes,  and  necessa- 
rily involve  two  sets  of  criminals. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts,  which  absolutely  dictate  discrim- 
inative legislation  that  shall  cover  all  the  guilty  parties,  our 
laws  have,  with  great  uniformity,  been  one-sided  for  the  double 
crime  as  well  as  for  the  single.  The  man  who  lends  money  at 
usurious  rates  is  accounted  the  only  guilty  party  in  the  transac- 
tion. The  borrower  may  have  come  to  him  with  a  bribe  in 
his  hand  to  induce  him  to  break  the  law — may  have  been  an 
active  partner  in  the  crime- — and  still  the  lender  is  the  only 
one  accounted  guilty  and  amenable  to  punishment.  The 
man  who  sells  intoxicating  liquors  contrary  to  law  could  never 
sell  a  glass,  and  would  never  buy  one  to  sell,  but  for  the  bribe 
outheld  in  the  palm  of  his  customer ;  yet  the  law  lays  its  hand 
only  upon  the  seller. 

Now,  if  we  look  into  the  history  of  these  one-sided  laws 
for  double  crimes,  we  shall  learn  that  they  are  precisely  those 
which  we  find  it  almost,  or  quite,  impossible  to  enforce ;  and 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  3II 

it  seems  never  to  have  been  suspected  that,  so  long  as  they 
are  one-sided,  there  is  a  fatal  flaw  in  them.  Our  legislators 
have  seemed  to  forget  that,  if  liquor  is  not  bought,  it  will  not 
be  sold;  that  if  usurious  rates  for  money  are  not  tendered, 
they  cannot  possibly  be  exacted ;  that  if  irregular  or  contin- 
gent fees  are  not  offered  to  the  prosecutors  of  real  or  doubtful 
claims,  the  prosecutors  are  without  a  motive  to  irregular  ac- 
tion. So  powerful  is  the  sympathy  of  confederacy  in  crime 
between  these  two  parties,  although  the  confederacy  is  not 
recognized  by  law,  that  it  has  been  almost  impossible  to  get 
convictions.  The  rum-buyer  will  never,  if  he  can  'help  it, 
testify  against  the  rum-seller.  Unless  the  victim  of  the  usurer 
is  a  very  mean  man,  he  will  keep  his  transactions  to  himself. 
It  is  really,  among  business  men,  a  matter  of  dishonor  for  a 
borrower  to  resort  to  the  usury  law  to  escape  the  payment  of 
rates  to  which  he  had  agreed;  and  it  ought  to  be.  Usury  is 
a  double  crime,  if  it  is  a  crime  at  all.  Rum-selling  contrary 
to  law  is  a  double  crime ;  and  no  prohibitory  law  can  stand,  or 
ever  ought  to  stand,  that  does  not  hold  the  buyer  to  the  same 
penalties  that  it  holds  the  seller.  The  man  who  bribes  the 
seller  to  break  the  law  is  as  guilty  as  the  seller,  and  if  the  law 
does  not  hold  him  to  his  share  of  accountability,  the  law  can- 
not be  respected,  and  never  ought  to  be  respected.  It  is  a 
one-sided  law,  an  unfair  law,  an  unjust  law.  Men  who  are 
not  able  to  reason  it  out,  as  we  are  endeavoring  to  do  here, 
feel  that  there  is  something  wrong  about  it;  and  it  is  safe  to 
predict  that,  until  the  moral  sentiment  of  a  State  is  up  to  the 
enactment  of  a  two-sided  law  that  shall  cover  a  two-sided 
crime,  no  prohibitory  law  will  accomplish  the  object  for  which 
it  was  constituted. 

Prostitution  is  one  of  the  most  notable,  and  one  of  the 
most  horrible,  of  the  list  of  double  crimes.      It  is  always  a 


3I2 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


double  crime  by  its  nature ;  yet,  how  one-sided  are  the  laws 
which  forbid  it !  Is  a  poor  girl,  who  has  not  loved  wisely, 
and  has  been  forsaken,  the  only  one  to  blame  when  beastly 
men  press  round  her  with  their  hands  full  of  bribes  enticing 
her  into  a  life  of  infamy?  Yet  she  alone  is  punished,  while 
they  go  scot  free.  And  yet  we  wonder  why  prostitution  is  so 
prevalent,  and  why  our  laws  make  no  impression  upon  it ! 
Some  ladies  of  our  commonwealth  have  protested  against  a 
proposed  law  for  some  sort  of  regulation  of  prostitution — 
putting  it  under  medical  surveillance.  And  they  are  right. 
If  men  who  frequent  houses  of  prostitution  are  permitted 
to  go  forth  from  them  to  scatter  their  disease  and  their  moral 
uncleanness  throughout  a  pure  community,  then  let  the 
women  alone.  In  a  case  like  this,  a  mistake  of  legislation 
may  amount  to  a  crime.  We  do  not  object  to  medical  sur- 
veillance, but  it  should  touch  both  parties  to  the  social  sin. 
No  law  that  does  not  do  this  will  ever  accomplish  anything 
toward  the  cure  of  prostitution.  We  have  some  respect  for 
Justice  when  she  is  represented  blindfold,  but  when  she  has 
one  eye  open — and  that  one  winking — she  is  a  monster. 

Our  whole  system  of  treating  double  crimes  with  one-sided 
laws,  our  whole  silly  policy  of  treating  one  party  to  a  double 
crime  as  a  fiend,  and  the  other  party  as  an  angel  or  a  baby, 
has  been  not  only  inefficient  for  the  end  sought  to  be  obtained, 
but  disastrous.  The  man  who  offers  a  bribe  to  another  for 
any  purpose  which  involves  the  infraction  of  a  law  of  the 
State  or  nation  is,  and  must  be,  an  equal  partner  in  the  guilt ; 
and  any  law  which  leaves  him  out  of  the  transaction  is  utterly 
unjust  on  the  face  of  it.  If  it  is  wrong  to  sell  liquor,  it  is 
wrong  to  buy  it,  and  wrong  to  sell  because,  and  only  because, 
it  is  wrong  to  buy.  If  prostitution  is  wrong,  it  .is  wrong  on 
both  sides,  and  he  who  offers  a  bribe  to  a  weak  woman,  with- 


THE  TEMPERANCE  QUESTION.  3I3 

out  home  or  friends  or  the  means  of  life,  to  break  the  laws  of 
the  State,  shares  her  guilt  in  equal  measure.  Law  can  never 
be  respected  that  is  not  just.  No  law  can  be  enforced  that 
lays  its  hand  upon  only  one  of  the  parties  to  a  double  crime. 
No  such  law  ever  was  enforced,  or  ever  accomplished  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  enacted ;  and  until  we  are  ready  to 
have  double  laws  for  double  crimes,  we  stultify  ourselves  by 
our  unjust  measures  to  suppress  those  crimes.  Our  witnesses 
are  all  accomplices,  the  moral  sense  of  the  community  is 
blunted  and  perverted,  and  those  whom  we  brand  as  crimi- 
nals look  upon  our  laws  with  contempt  of  judgment  and  con- 
science. 


SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE. 

GOOD  MANNERS. 

Mr.  James  Jackson  Jarves,  in  a  late  number  of  The  Independ- 
ent, has  an  exceedingly  interesting  and  well- written  paper  on 
"  Fine  Manners  as  a  fine  Art."  It  is  written  from  the  stand- 
point of  an  artist,  and  relates  mainly  to  the  aesthetic  element  in 
manners.  We  do  not  propose  to  criticise  it,  and  we  allude  to 
it  only  to  point  out  and  emphasize  the  distinction  between  good 
manners  and  fine  manners.  A  manner  may  be  fine  without 
being  good,  and  good  without  being  fine.  It  may  also  be 
good  and  fine  at  the  same  time.  The  manner  of  an  aristocrat, 
who  looks  down  upon  nine  persons  in  ten  whom  he  may  hap- 
pen to  meet,  may  be  fine,  but  it  is  not  good.  The  manner  of 
a  Frenchman — a  member  of  the  Latin  race,  which  Mr.  Jarves 
praises — may  be  fine,  but  it  is  not  good,  because  it  is  not  based 
in  that  profound  respect  for  woman  without  which  all  fine  man- 
ners exhibited  in  his  intercourse  with  her  are  no  better  than  an 
insult. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  only  point  we  choose  to  make  in 
this  article.  A  catholic  love  of  humanity,  and  a  genuine  re- 
spect for  its  rights,  is  the  only  sound  basis  for  good  manners. 
A  tender  and  pure  regard  for  woman,  added  to  this  among 
men,  furnishes  all  the  spring  and  impulse  necessary  for  the 
best  and  finest  forms  of  politeness.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go 


SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE. 


3*5 


to  the  Latin  peoples,  with  their  traditions  of  art  and  their  aes- 
thetic culture;  it  is  not  necessary  to  see  countries  where  classes 
are  recognized  and  manners  take  the  form  and  are  shaped  to 
the  arbitrary  rules  of  etiquette;  it  is  not  necessary  to  study  man- 
uals of  social  usage,  or  sit  at  the  feet  of  Mr.  Turveydrop,  in  or- 
der to  learn  good  manners,  provided  a  man  thoroughly  respect 
his  fellow,  and  find  himself  possessed  of  that  sentiment  toward 
woman  which  makes  her  his  ideal  and  his  idol.  Without  this 
respect  and  this  love,  there  is  nothing  more  hollow  and  worth- 
less than  fine  manners.  They  become,  in  this  case,  simply  the 
disguise  of  an  egoist  more  or  less  base  and  contemptible. 

We  know  that  it  is  quite  common  to  attribute  fine  manners 
to  the  Latin  peoples  as  a  characteristic.  That  their  forms  of 
politeness  are  graceful  and  picturesque  is  not  to  be  denied. 
There  is  more  of  the  show  of  courtesy  among  the  common  peo- 
ple, and  more  of  what  may  be  called  gallantry  in  the  treatment 
of  women,  than  among  the  Saxons  and  the  Celts;  but  a  form 
of  courtesy  which  is  a  form  of  fawning  for  a  purpose,  and  a 
gallantry  which  originates  in  sensuality,  are  neither  fine  man- 
ners nor  good  manners.  The  French  have  been  for  many 
years  regarded  as  the  politest  nation  of  the  earth.  The  French 
capital  is  looked  upon  as  the  very  home  and  high  court  of  fine 
manners;  yet  there  is  probably  not  a  city  in  the  world  that  en- 
tertains so  little  respect  for  women  as  Paris,  or  that  is  so  thor- 
oughly permeated  by  distrust.  The  Frenchman  does  not  trust 
the  Frenchwoman,  nor  does  she  trust  him.  His  treatment  of 
her,  though  fine  enough  in  its  manner,  is  dictated  by  that 
which  is  base  in  him.  It  has  the  look  of  gold,  but  both 
he  and  she  know  that  it  is  only  lacquer.  France  is  full  of  fine 
manners,  but  we  should  never  think  of  looking  in  France  for 
good  manners.  Any  man  who  has  traveled  there  knows  that 
they  who  bow  lowest  to  him  will  cheat  him  worst,  and  that 


3i6 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


underneath  a  fine  exterior  and  a  show  of  self-depreciation  and 
outgoing  deference  and  respect,  there  lives  and  dominates  a 
selfishness  that  is  hideous  and  hateful. 

As  we  are  in  the  habit  of  praising  the  Frenchman's  polite- 
ness, so  are  we  in  the  habit  of  speaking  very  contemptuously 
of  the  manners  of  the  characteristic  American.  That  in  the 
lower  forms  of  American  social  life  there  is  much  that  is  rude 
and  uncouth  is  admitted ;  but  it  is  also  claimed  that,  in  some 
respects,  the  American  is  the  best-mannered  man  living.  He 
is  never  quarrelsome,  his  whole  education  has  made  him  care- 
ful to  respect  the  rights  of  those  around  him,  and  he  en- 
tertains a  regard  for  woman  which  the  characteristic  represent- 
ative of  no  other  nation  shares  with  him.  The  theory  on 
which  the  institutions  of  his  country  are  founded,  and  the 
influence  of  those  institutions  upon  him  since  the  day  of  his 
birth,  are  favorable  to  the  development  in  him  of  that  respect 
for  the  rights  of  all  men  which  is  essential  as  the  basis  of  good 
manners.  In  no  country  but  America  can  a  woman,  unat- 
tended, travel  wheresoever  she  will  without  insult,  or  the 
danger  of  insult.  There  are  no  countries  in  the  world  in 
which  a  woman  traveling  alone  would  travel  in  so  much 
danger  as  in  those  most  noted  for  fine  manners. 

American  society  is  comparatively  new.  We  have  very 
little  among  us  that  is  traditional.  The  national  style  of 
manners  is  in  a  formative  state ;  but  we  certainly  possess  the 
basis  for  good  manners  in  a  pre-eminent  degree.  We  are  a 
good-natured,  facile  people,  not  ungraceful,  and  certainly  not 
lacking  in  self-possession.  We  have  need  only  to  respect  our- 
selves a  little  more,  cease  looking  across  the  water  for  models, 
and  give  as  graceful  an  expression  as  we  can  to  our  sentiments 
toward  universal  man  and  woman,  to  become  the  acknowl- 
edged possessors  of  good  manners. 


SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE.  ,I7 

Fine  manners  will  not  become  universal  and  characteristic 
of  American  life  for  many  years.  The  absorption  of  the 
American  mind  in  the  development  of  the  material  resources 
of  the  country,  in  the  prosecution  of  its  industrial  interests, 
and  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  forbids  that  aesthetic  culture 
whose  natural  outgrowth  is  fine  manners.  Good  manners, 
which  we  already  possess,  and  for  which  we  hold  the  only 
legitimate  and  reliable  basis,  need  simply  to  be  refined.  The 
refinement  of  good  manners  will  not  come  to  us  through  the 
pursuit  of  "  fine  manners  as  a  fine  art,"  but  they  will  come  as 
a  natural  outgrowth  of  general  aesthetic  culture.  As  the  na- 
tion becomes  more  refined,  manners  will  be  only  one  of  the 
forms  and  modes  through  which  the  growing  idea  of  that 
which  is  graceful  and  beautiful  will  express  itself.  The  man 
who  feels  finely  will  act  finely,  provided  he  mingle  sufficiently 
in  society  to  act  freely.  There  is  no  value  in  any  form  of  fine 
art  without  fine  feeling,  and  there  must  be  something  better 
than  the  character  of  the  typical  Latin  on  which  to  base  a 
style  of  manners  worth  possession  or  emulation.  Manners 
pursued  as  an  art,  for  their  own  sake,  will  become  artificial, 
and  thus  react  upon  character  in  a  very  disagreeable  and 
dangerous  way. 

SOCIAL  USAGES. 

There  are  some  details  of  social  usage  that  are  so  childish, 
and,  withal,  so  inconvenient  and  burdensome,  as  to  demand  a 
public  denunciation.  Nobody  likes  them,  everybody  desires 
to  be  relieved  of  them,  and  all  seem  to  be  powerless  to  reform 
them.  Their  burdensomeness  forms  a  serious  bar  to  social  in- 
tercourse, and  their  only  tendency  is  to  drive  some  men  and 
women  out  of  society  altogether,  and  to  worry  and  weary 
those  who  remain  subject  to  them. 


3 1 8  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

A  person  is  invited  to  an  "  informal "  reception.  Special 
pains  may  be,  and  often  are,  taken  to  impress  him  with  the 
idea  that  such  a  reception  is,  indeed,  "  informal."  The  idea 
is  very  good.  The  proposition  is  to  bring  together  a  circle  of 
friends  in  a  familiar  way,  without  expensive  dress  on  the  part 
of  the  guests,  or  an  expensive  entertainment  on  the  part  of 
the  ho'stess.  It  is  an  attractive  sort  of  invitation,  but  woe  to 
the  man  or  woman  who  accepts  it  according  to  its  terms. 
The  man  and  the  woman  who  attend  in  anything  but  full 
evening  dress  will  find  themselves  singular,  and  most  uncom- 
fortable. They  have  taken  their  hostess  at  her  word,  and 
find,  instead  of  a  party  of  familiar  friends,  who  can  sit  down 
and  enjoy  an  hour  of  social  intercourse,  a  highly  dressed  "  jam," 
which  comes  late  and  departs  late,  and  is  treated  to  an  elabo- 
rate supper.  People  have,  at  last,  learned  that  if  there  is  any- 
thing that  must  be  dressed  for  elaborately,  it  is  an  "informal 
reception,"  and  that  there  is  really  no  greater  cheat  than  the 
invitation  which  calls  them  together.  The  consequence  is  that 
we  have  no  really  informal  gatherings  of  men  and  women  in 
what  we  call  "  society." 

Again,  when  we  invite  a  guest  to  dinner  at  six,  we  expect 
him  to  come  at,  or  before,  that  hour.  It  is  counted  the 
height  of  impoliteness  for  a  guest  to  keep  a  dinner  waiting  a 
moment.  This  is  just  as  it  should  be ;  but  when  we  invite  a 
guest  at  eight  o'clock,  to  a  reception  or  a  party,  what  then  ? 
Why,  we  do  not  expect  him  until  nine,  we  do  not  ordinarily 
get  him  until  half-past  nine,  and  are  not  surprised  at  his 
entrance  at  any  subsequent  hour  before  the  company  breaks 
up.  Why  the  rule  should  be  good  for  the  dinner  that  is  not 
good  for  the  assembly  does  not  appear,  except  that  in  the  case 
of  the  dinner  it  is  a  question  of  hot  or  cold  soup  that  is  to  be 
decided.  At  eight  the  host  and  hostess  are  in  their  vacant 


SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE.  319 

rooms,  be-gloved  and  waiting.  They  are  there  for  an  hour, 
wishing  their  guests  would  come.  At  last  one  makes  his  ap- 
pearance, and,  with  a  guilty  look,  whips  up-stairs.  Then  he 
waits  until  another  joins  him,  and  another,  and  another,  and 
so  at  last  he  descends.  All  have  lost  the  only  opportunity 
they  will  have  for  a  pleasant  chat  with  those  who  have  in- 
vited them — lost,  indeed,  the  only  chance  they  will  have  of  a 
look  at  the  flowers,  at  the  pictures,  and  the  enjoyment  of  an 
undisturbed  chat,  with  comfortable  seats  and  surroundings. 
All  dread  to  be  first,  and  so  all  wait,  and  thus  thrust  far  into 
the  night  their  hour  of  departure.  The  company  that  should 
be  at  home  at  eleven,  and  in  bed  at  half-past  eleven,  do  not 
find  their  beds  until  one  the  next  morning. 

To  the  man  of  business  such  hours  as  mingling  in  social  life 
imposes  are  simply  killing.  They  are  the  same  to  women 
who  have  family  duties  to  perform.  They  wipe  the  bloom  of 
youth  from  the  cheeks  of  girls  in  from  one  to  three  seasons ; 
and  thus  social  life  in  the  great  cities,  instead  of  being  a 
blessing  and  a  delight,  as  it  should  be,  becomes  a  burden  and 
a  bore.  Many  are  driven  by  considerations  of  health  and 
comfort  out  of  social  life  altogether,  and  those  who  remain 
rely  upon  the  rest  of  summer  to  restore  them  sufficiently  to 
stand  another  campaign.  We  submit  that  this  is  an  unex- 
aggerated  representation  of  the  present  state  of  things,  and 
protest  that  it  demands  reform. 

Every  hour  that  a  man  spends  out  of  his  bed  after  half-past 
ten  at  night  is  a  violence  to  nature.  They  have  learned  this 
in  Germany,  where,  in  many  towns,  their  public  amusements 
terminate  at  half-past  nine,  and,  in  some  cases,  even  earlier 
than  this.  It  is  in  this  direction  that  a  reform  should  be 
effected  in  America,  so  far  as  every  variety  of  public  and 
social  assembly  is  concerned.  An  invitation  at  eight  should 


320 


E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS, 


mean  what  it  says,  and  be  honored  in  its  terms.  In  this  way 
social  life  would  be  possible  to  many  to  whom  it  is  now 
practically  denied,  and  become  a  blessing  to  all. 

It  is  not  hard  to  institute  a  reform  of  this  kind.  All  it 
wants  is  a  leading;  and  half  a  dozen  of  our  social  queens 
could  do  the  work  in  a  single  season.  It  used  to  be  deemed 
essential  to  a  social  assembly  that  a  huge,  expensive  supper  be 
served  at  its  close,  and  this  at  an  hour  when  no  man  or  woman 
could  afford  to  eat  a  hearty  meal.  We  have  measurably  out- 
lived this  in  New  York.  It  is  "  quite  the  thing  "  now  to  serve 
light  and  inexpensive  refreshments.  The  man  who  dines  at 
six  needs  no  heavy  supper  before  he  goes  to  bed.  He  not 
only  does  not  need  it,  but  he  cannot  eat  it  without  harm.  Its 
expensiveness  is  a  constant  bar  to  social  life;  and  let  us  be 
thankful  that  this  abuse,  at  least,  is  pretty  well  reformed  al- 
ready. Other  abuses  and  bad  habits  can  be  reformed  just  as 
easily  as  this,  because  reform  is  in  the  line  of  the  common 
sense  and  the  common  desire.  The  leading,  as  we  have  said, 
is  all  that  is  wanted,  and  when  we  commence  another  season 
such  leading  ought  to  be  volunteered.  Something  surely 
ought  to  be  done  to  make  social  life  a  recreative  pleasure,  and 
not  a  severe  tax  upon  the  vital  forces  as  it  is  at  present. 

SOCIAL  TAXES. 

The  typical  American  is  not  an  unsocial  person.  Indeed, 
he  is  very  far  from  being  anything  of  the  kind.  Foreigners 
regard  the  American  as  one  who  has  a  particular  fondness  for 
living  with  his  windows  up  and  his  doors  open.  Yet  it  is 
doubtless  true  that  there  is  a  notable  lack  of  freedom  and  ease 
in  the  intercourse  of  American  society,  and  that  the  coming 
together  of  men  and  women  for  the  interchange  of  thought 
and  feeling  \s  attended  with  difficulties  that  only  the  rich  may 


SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE.  32I 

successfully  encounter.  If  half  a  dozen  friends  are  invited  to 
dinner  it  is  deemed  necessary  to  crowd  the  table  with  superflu- 
ous viands  and  dainty  and  costly  dishes.  If  the  same  number 
are  invited  to  tea,  there  is  hardly  less  expense  and  trouble 
incurred.  Instead  of  the  simple  tea,  and  the  light  food  that 
appropriately  accompanies  it,  in  the  ordinary  life  of  the  family, 
there  is  a  supper,  in  which  salads  and  solid  dishes,  cold  and 
hot,  and  all  expensive,  are  crowded  upon  the  jaded  appetite. 
Even  this  is  not  enough.  Before  the  guests  depart,  they  are 
often  beset  again  with  dainty  offerings  of  ice  and  fruit  and 
coffee. 

When  we  come  to  more  ambitious  gatherings  we  encounter 
more  preposterous  folly.  An  ordinary  social  party  is  a  huge 
feast,  which  begins  at  the  time  when  people  ought  to  be  going 
to  bed,  ends  when  they  ought  to  be  getting  up,  and  crowds 
the  stomach  with  luxurious  and  burdensome  food  and  drinks 
at  the  time  when  it  ought  to  be  in  its  profoundest  rest.  One 
such  party  exhausts  the  resources  of  the  family  which  gives 
it  for  a  year  or  two,  unless  they  are  people  of  abounding 
wealth,  turns  their  house  upside  down,  and  breaks  up  their 
whole  family  life  for  a  fortnight.  The  payment  for  entertain- 
ment, in  music  and  dainties  and  flowers,  makes  the  purse- 
carrier  groan,  and  wrings  from  him  the  glad  declaration  that 
his  duty  is  done  for  a  twelve-month,  at  least!  One  party 
is  just  like  every  other  party,  except  that  one  is  more  or  less 
expensive  than  another.  There  is  rivalry  of  dress  among  the 
women,  to  be  sure,  and  such  new  toilets  as  they  can  afford  to 
make  from  time  to  time,  and  often  such  as  they  cannot  afford 
to  make ;  but  there  are  the  same  old  fiddles,  playing  the  same 
old  quadrilles  and  waltzes ;  there  is  the  same  caterer  and  the 
familiar  ices  and  salads;  the  same  "How  do  you  do?"  and 
the  same  "Good-Night,"  and  "We  have  had  such  a  splendid 
time ! " 

. 


322 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


Now  we  protest  that  there  must  be  some  better  way  than 
this.  The  great  multitude  are  those  who,  in  some  calling  or 
profession,  work  for  their  bread.  To  furnish  a  dinner  and  tea 
such  as  we  have  described,  would  be  felt  by  them  as  a  severe 
tax.  No  matter  how  intellectual  and  socially  valuable  these 
people  may  be,  they  shrink  from  entering  society  that  imposes 
such  burdens.  As  they  feel  it  to  be  impossible  for  them  to 
return  in  kind  the  expensive  civilities  which  a  wealthy  neigh- 
bor extends  to  them,  they  shrink  back  into  their  own  houses 
and  go  nowhere.  Everywhere,  and  all  the  time,  these  costly 
entertainments,  at  dinner  and  tea  and  social  assembly,  operate 
as  a  bar  to  social  intercourse.  Indeed,  they  have  become,  in 
the  full,  legitimate  meaning  of  the  word,  a  nuisance.  To 
those  who  give  them  they  are  not  pleasant  in  any  respect. 
They  are  provided  with  no  expectation  of  a  compensating 
pleasure;  and  few  besides  the  young — to  whom  any  oppor- 
tunity for  dancing  and  frolicking  is  agreeable — take  the  slight- 
est satisfaction  in  them.  They  are  glad  when  their  toilet  is 
made,  glad  when  the  refreshments  are  offered,  glad  when  the 
show  is  over  and  they  can  go  home,  glad  when  they  get  safely 
to  bed,  and  particularly  glad  the  following  morning  if  they  can 
look  over  their  coats  and  dresses  and  find  that  they  are  not 
ruined. 

Have  we  exaggerated  in  the  least  in  these  representations  ? 
Nay,  have  we  not  told  the  exact,  notorious  truth  ?  We  pro- 
test again,  then,  that  there  must  be  some  better  way.  Here  is 
another  opportunity  for  woman  to  do  good;  for  it  is  woman, 
in  her  social  pride  and  in  her  pride  of  housekeeping,  who  has 
more  to  do  with  this  thing  than  man.  The  woman  who  can 
make  her  drawing-room  attractive  by  informal  gatherings  of 
men  and  women,  who  shall  not  be  put  through  the  tortures 
of  the  toilet,  nor  burdened  with  a  sense  of  obligation  by  the 


SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE. 


323 


luxuries  prepared  for  their  entertainment,  is  the  real  social 
queen.  The  essential  vulgarity  of  the  phase  of  social  life 
which  we  are  considering  is  decided  by  the  simple  fact  that 
the  great  question  of  the  hostess  concerns  the  stomachs  of  her 
guests,  and  the  great  question  of  her  guests  relates  to  the 
decoration  of  their  own  backs.  It  elevates  nobody,  it  refines 
nobody,  it  inspires  and  instructs  nobody,  and  it  satisfies  no- 
body. Yet  we  go  on,  year  after  year,  upholding  these  social 
usages  which  we  despise.  Let  us  find  the  better  way,  and 
follow  it ! 

THE  TORTURES  OF  THE  DINNER-TABLE. 

In  the  space  of  twenty-five  years  we  have  heard  twenty- 
five  men,  more  or  less,  make  successful  dinner-table  speeches. 
Of  these,  ten  were  sensible  men  who  entertained  their  com- 
panions by  trying  to  talk  like  fools ;  ten  were  fools  who  were 
equally  entertaining  in  their  endeavor  to  talk  like  sensible 
men ;  and  five — the  only  persons  of  the  number  who  enjoyed 
the  eminence  and  the  exercise — were  drunk,  and  neither  knew 
nor  cared  whether  they  talked  sense  or  nonsense.  As  a  rule, 
the  successful  dinner-table  orator  is  a  shallow  man — one  whose 
thoughts  are  on  the  surface,  whose  vocabulary  is  small  and  at 
quick  command,  and  whose  lack  of  any  earnest  purpose  in 
life  leaves  him  free  to  talk  upon  trifles.  We  all  remember 
what  earnest,  strong,  logical  speeches  Abraham  Lincoln  used 
to  make,  when  he  stood  before  the  people  in  the  advocacy  of 
great  principles  and  a  great  cause;  and  we  remember,  too, 
with  pain,  how  tame  and  childish  and  awkward  he  was  when 
he  appeared  before  them  to  acknowledge  a  compliment,  or  to 
say  something  which  should  be  nothing.  Inspired  by  a  great 
purpose,  he  could  do  anything;  with  nothing  to  say,  he  could 
say  nothing.  It  is  thus  with  the  great  majority  of  our  best 


324 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


men.  There  is  nothing  in  which  they  succeed  so  poorly  as  in 
a  dinner-table  speech,  and  there  is  nothing  which  they  dread 
so  much.  The  anticipation  of  it  is  torture  to  them;  the  per- 
formance is  usually  a  failure.  At  last,  they  learn  to  shun 
dinner- tables,  and  to  tell  weak  lies  in  apology  for  their  non- 
attendance. 

There  is  something  very  absurd  in  the  submission  of  so 
many  men  to  this  custom  of  speech-making.  There  is  never 
a  public  dinner,  or  a  dinner  which  may  possibly  merge  into 
formality  of  toast  and  talk,  without  its  overhanging  cloud  of 
dread.  There  is  probably  not  one  man  present,  from  him  who 
expects  to  be  called  upon  for  a  speech  to  him  who  is  afraid 
that  the  demand  will  at  last  reach  him,  who  would  not  pay  a 
handsome  price  to  be  out  of  the  room  and  its  dangers.  To 
multitudes  of  men,  the  viands  of  a  feast  are  gall  and  bitterness, 
through  this  haunting  dread  of  the  moment  when,  with  bellies 
full  and  brains  empty,  they  shall  find  themselves  on  their  feet, 
making  a  frantic  endeavor  to  say  something  that  shall  bring 
down  the  fork-handles,  and  give  them  leave  to  subside. 

Why  a  dinner-table  should  be  chosen  as  an  oratorical  theatre, 
we  cannot  imagine.  There  could  not  be  selected  a  moment 
more  inauspicious  for  happy  speech  than  that  in  which  all  the 
nervous  energy  centres  itself  upon  digestion.  A  man  cannot 
have  even  a  happy  dream  under  such  circumstances.  Dancing 
the  sailor's  hornpipe  with  dumb-bells  in  one's  coat  pockets  is 
not  advisable,  and  it  is  possible  that  it  is  not  advisable  under 
any  circumstances.  It  is  very  rare  that  a  dinner  party  prefers 
to  sit  and  listen  to  interminable  speeches,  for  it  is  almost  as 
hard  to  listen  as  to  talk  when  the  stomach  is  full  of  the  heavy 
food  of  a  feast.  Nothing  but  stimulating  drink  loosens  the 
tongue  under  such  circumstances,  or  puts  a  company  into  that 
sensitively  appreciative  mood  which  responds  to  buncombe  and 


SOCIAL  INTERCOURSE, 


325 


bathos.  The  drinking  which  is  resorted  to  for  making  these 
occasions  endurable,  is  often  shameful,  and  always  demoraliz- 
ing. Not  a  good  thing  ever  comes  of  it  all,  nobody  enjoys  it, 
speakers  and  hearers  dislike  it,  and  still  the  custom  is  contin- 
ued. It  is  like  the  grand  dress  parties,  which  nobody  likes,  yet 
which  all  attend  and  all  give,  to  the  infinite  boring  of  them- 
selves and  their  friends. 

The  discourtesies  often  visited  upon  gentlemen  at  public  din- 
ner-parties deserve  an  earnest  protest.  Men  are  called  to  their 
feet  not  only  against  their  known  wishes,  but  against  pledges, 
and  compelled  to  speech  that  is  absolute  torture  to  them.  The 
boobies  who  thus  distress  modest  and  sensitive  men  ought  to 
be  kicked  out  of  society.  No  one  has  a  right  to  give  an  in- 
nocent man  pain  by  compelling  him  to  make  of  himself  a  pub- 
lic spectacle,  or  summoning  him  to  a  task  that  is  unspeakably 
distasteful  to  him.  No  man  ought  ever  to  be  called  upon  at 
such  a  place,  except  with  his  full  consent  previously  obtained ; 
and  he  who  forces  a  modest  man  to  a  task  like  this  in  the  pres- 
ence of  society,  fails  in  the  courtesy  of  a  gentleman.  The  truth 
is  that  no  dinner  is  pleasant  unless  it  be  entirely  informal.  The 
moment  it  takes  on  a  formal  character  its  life  as  a  social  occa- 
sion is  departed;  and  those  who  foster  the  custom  of  speech- 
making  drive  from  their  society  multitudes  of  men  who  would 
be  glad  to  meet  them — whose  presence  would  give  them  pleas- 
ure and  do  them  good.  Let  us  have  done  with  this  foolishness. 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY. 

THE  LONELINESS  OF  FARMING-LIFE  IN  AMERICA. 

An  American  traveler  in  the  Old  World  notices,  among  the 
multitude  of  things  that  are  new  to  his  eye,  the  gathering  of 
agricultural  populations  into  villages.  He  has  been  accustomed 
in  his  own  country  to  see  them  distributed  upon  the  farms  they 
cultivate.  The  isolated  farm -life,  so  universal  here,  either  does 
not  exist  at  all  in  the  greater  part  of  continental  Europe,  or  it 
exists  as  a  comparatively  modern  institution.  The  old  popula- 
tions, of  all  callings  and  professions,  clustered  together  for  self- 
defense,  and  built  walls  around  themselves.  Out  from  these 
walls,  for  miles  around,  went  the  tillers  of  the  soil  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  back  into  the  gates  they  thronged  at  night.  Cottages 
were  clustered  around  feudal  castles,  and  grew  into  towns;  and 
so  Europe  for  many  centuries  was  cultivated  mainly  by  people 
who  lived  in  villages  and  cities,  many  of  which  were  walled, 
and  all  of  which  possessed  apppointments  of  defense.  The  early 
settlers  in  our  own  country  took  the  same  means  to  defend 
themselves  from  the  treacherous  Indian.  The  towns  of  Had- 
ley,  Hatfield,  Northfield,  and  Deerfield,  on  the  Connecticut 
River,  are  notable  examples  of  this  kind  of  building;  and  to 
this  day  they  remain  villages  of  agriculturists.  That  this  is  the 
way  in  which  farmers  ought  to  live  we  have  no  question,  and 
we  wish  to  say  a  few  words  about  it. 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY.  327 

There  is  some  reason  for  the  general  disposition  of  American 
men  and  women  to  shun  agricultural  pursuits  which  the  ob- 
servers and  philosophers  have  been  slow  to  find.  We  see 
young  men  pushing  everywhere  into  trade,  into  mechanical  pur- 
suits, into  the  learned  professions,  into  insignificant  clerkships,  into 
salaried  positions  of  every  sort  that  will  take  them  into  towns 
and  support  and  hold  them  there.  We  find  it  impossible  to 
drive  poor  people  from  the  cities  with  the  threat  of  starvation, 
or  to  coax  them  with  the  promise  of  better  pay  and  cheaper 
fare.  There  they  stay,  and  starve,  and  sicken,  and  sink. 
Young  women  resort  to  the  shops  and  the  factories  rather  than 
take  service  in  farmers'  houses,  where  they  are  received  as 
members  of  the  family;  and  when  they  marry,  they  seek  an 
alliance,  when  practicable,  with  mechanics  and  tradesmen  who 
live  in  villages  and  large  towns.  The  daughters  of  the  farmer 
fly  the  farm  at  the  first  opportunity.  The  towns  grow  larger 
all  the  time,  and,  in  New  England,  at  least,  the  farms  are  be- 
coming wider  and  longer,  and  the  farming  population  are  di- 
minished in  numbers,  and,  in  some  localities,  degraded  in  qual- 
ity and  character. 

It  all  comes  to  this,  that  isolated  life  has  very  little  signifi- 
cance to  a  social  being.  The  social  life  of  the  village  and  the 
city  has  intense  fascination  to  the  lonely  dwellers  on  the  farm, 
or  to  a  great  multitude  of  them.  Especially  is  this  the  case 
with  the  young.  The  youth  of  both  sexes  who  have  seen  noth- 
ing of  the  world  have  an  overwhelming  desire  to  meet  life  and 
to  be  among  the  multitude.  They  feel  their  life  to  be  narrow 
in  its  opportunities  and  its  rewards,  and  the  pulsation  of  the 
great  social  heart  that  comes  to  them  in  rushing  trains  and  pass- 
ing steamers  and  daily  newspapers,  damp  with  the  dews  of  a 
hundred  brows,  thrill  them  with  longings  for  the  places  where 
the  rhythmic  throb  is  felt  and  heard.  They  are  not  to  be  blamed 


3  2  8  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

for  this.  It  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  woild.  If  all 
of  life  were  labor, — if  the  great  object  of  life  were  the  scraping 
together  of  a  few  dollars,  more  or  less, — why,  isolation  without 
diversion  would  be  economy  and  profit;  but  so  long  as  the  ob- 
ject of  life  is  life,  and  the  best  and  purest  and  happiest  that  can 
come  of  it,  all  needless  isolation  is  a  crime  against  the  soul,  in 
that  it  is  a  surrender  and  sacrifice  of  noble  opportunities. 

We  are,  therefore,  not  sorry  to  see  farms  growing  larger,  pro- 
vided those  who  work  them  will  get  nearer  together;  and  that 
is  what  they  ought  to  do.  Any  farmer  who  plants  himself  and 
his  family  alone — far  from  possible  neighbors — takes  upon  him- 
self a  terrible  responsibility.  It  is  impossible  that  he  and  his 
should  be  well  developed  and  thoroughly  happy  there.  He 
will  be  forsaken  in  his  old  age  by  the  very  children  for  whom 
he  has  made  his  great  sacrifice.  They  will  fly  to  the  towns 
for  the  social  food  and  stimulus  for  which  they  have  starved. 
We  never  hear  of  a  colony  settling  on  a  western  prairie  without 
a  thrill  of  pleasure.  It  is  in  colonies  that  all  ought  to  settle, 
and  in  villages  rather  than  on  separated  farms.  The  meeting, 
the  lecture,  the  public  amusement,  the  social  assembly,  should 
be  things  easily  reached.  There  is  no  such  damper  upon  free 
social  life  as  distance.  A  long  road  is  the  surest  bar  to  neigh- 
borly intercourse.  If  the  social  life  of  the  farmer  were  richer, 
his  life  would  by  that  measure  be  the  more  attractive. 

After  all,  there  are  farmers  who  will  read  this  article  with  a  sense 
of  affront  or  injury,  as  if  by  doubting  or  disputing  the  sufficiency 
of  their  social  opportunities  we  insult  them  with  a  sort  of  con- 
tempt. We  assure  them  that  they  cannot  afford  to  treat  thor- 
oughly sympathetic  counsel  in  this  way.  We  know  that  their 
wives  and  daughters  and  sons  are  on  our  side,  quarrel  with  us 
as  they  may;  and  the  women  and  children  are  right.  "The 
old  man,"  who  rides  to  market  and  the  post-office,  and  mingles 


TO  WN  AND  CO UNTR  Y.  3 2 g 

more  or  less  in  business  with  the  world,  gets  along  tolerably 
well;  but  it  is  the  stayers  at  home  who  suffer.  Instead  of 
growing  wiser  and  better  as  they  grow  old,  they  lose  all  the 
graces  of  life  in  unmeaning  drudgery,  and  instead  of  ripening 
in  mind  and  heart,  they  simply  dry  up  or  decay.  We  are  en- 
tirely satisfied  that  the  great  curse  of  farming  life  in  America  is 
its  isolation.  It  is  useless  to  say  that  men  shun  the  farm  be- 
cause they  are  lazy.  The  American  is  not  a  lazy  man  any- 
where; but  he  is  social,  and  he  will  fly  from  a  life  that  is  not 
social  to  one  that  is.  If  we  are  to  have  a  larger  and  better 
population  devoted  to  agriculture,  isolation  must  be  shunned, 
and  the  whole  policy  of  settlement  hereafter  must  be  controlled 
or  greatly  modified  by  social  considerations. 

THE  OVERCROWDED  CITIES. 

There  is  hardly  a  city  in  the  United  States  which  does  not 
contain  more  people  than  can  get  a  fair,  honest  living,  by  la- 
bor or  trade,  in  the  best  times.  When  times  of  business  de- 
pression come,  like  those  through  which  we  have  passed,  and 
are  passing,  there  is  a  large  class  that  must  be  helped,  to  keep 
them  from  cruel  suffering.  Still  the  cities  grow,  while  whole 
regions  of  the  country, — especially  its  older  portions, — are 
depopulated  year  by  year.  Yet  the  fact  is  patent  to-day  that 
the  only  prosperous  class  is  the  agricultural.  We  often  wit- 
ness the  anomaly  of  thrifty  farmers  and  starving  tradesmen. 
The  country  must  be  fed,  and  the  farmers  feed  it.  The  city 
family  may  do  without  new  clothes,  and  a  thousand  luxurious 
appliances,  but  it  must  have  bread  and  meat.  There  is  noth- 
ing that  can  prevent  the  steady  prosperity  of  the  American 
farmer  but  the  combinations  and  "  corners  "  of  middle-men, 
that  force  unnatural  conditions  upon  the  finances  and  markets 
of  the  country. 


33° 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


This  is  not  the  first  occasion  we  have  had  for  allusion  to 
this  subject,  and  it  is  not  likely  to  be  the  last.  The  forsaking 
of  the  farm  for  city  life  is  one  of  the  great  evils  of  the  time, 
and,  so  far,  it  has  received  no  appreciable  check.  Every 
young  man,  apparently,  who  thinks  he  can  get  a  living  in  the 
city,  or  at  the  minor  centres  of  population,  quits  his  lonely 
home  upon  the  farm  and  joins  the  multitude.  Once  in  the 
city,  he  never  returns.  Notwithstanding  the  confinement  and 
the  straitened  conditions  of  his  new  life,  he  clings  to  it  until 
he  dies,  adding  his  family  to  the  permanent  population  of  his 
new  home.  Mr.  Greeley,  in  his  days  of  active  philanthropy, 
used  to  urge  men  to  leave  the  city — to  go  West — to  join  the 
agricultural  population,  and  thus  make  themselves  sure  of  a 
competent  livelihood.  He  might  as  well  have  talked  to  the 
wind.  A  city  population  can  neither  be  coaxed  nor  driven 
into  agricultural  pursuits.  It  is  not  that  they  are  afraid  of 
work.  The  average  worker  of  the  city  toils  more  hours  than 
the  average  farmer  in  any  quarter  of  the  country.  He  is 
neither  fed  nor  lodged  as  well  as  the  farmer.  He  is  less  inde- 
pendent than  the  farmer.  He  is  a  bond-slave  to  his  employ- 
ers and  his  conditions ;  yet  the  agricultural  life  has  no  charms 
for  him. 

Whatever  the  reason  for  this  may  be,  it  is  not  based  in  the 
nature  of  the  work,  or  in  its  material  rewards.  The  farmer  is 
demonstrably  better  off  than  the  worker  of  the  city.  He  is 
more  independent,  has  more  command  of  his  own  time,  fares 
better  at  table,  lodges  better,  and  gets  a  better  return  for  his 
labor.  What  is  the  reason,  then,  that  the  farmer's  boy  runs 
to  the  city  the  first  chance  he  can  get,  and  remains,  if  he  can 
possibly  find  there  the  means  of  life  ? 

It  can  only  be  found,  we  believe,  in  the  social  leanness,  or 
social  starvation,  of  American  agricultural  life.  The  American 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY.  23 1 

farmer,  in  all  his  planning,  and  all  his  building,  has  never 
made  provision  for  life.  He  has  only  considered  the  means 
of  getting  a  living.  Everything  outside  of  this — everything 
relating  to  society  and  culture — has  been  steadily  ignored. 
He  gives  his  children  the  advantages  of  schools,  not  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that  these  very  advantages  call  into  life  a  new 
set  of  social  wants.  A  bright,  well-educated  family,  in  a 
lonely  farm-house,  is  very  different  material  from  a  family 
brought  up  in  ignorance.  An  American  farmer's  children,  who 
have  had  a  few  terms  at  a  neighboring  academy,  resemble  in 
no  degree  the  children  of  the  European  peasant.  They  come 
home  with  new  ideas  and  new  wants ;  and  if  there  is  no  pro- 
vision made  for  these  new  wants,  and  they  find  no  oppor- 
tunities for  their  satisfaction,  they  will  be  ready,  on  reaching 
their  majority,  to  fly  the  farm  and  seek  the  city. 

If  the  American  farmer  wishes  to  keep  his  children  near 
him,  he  must  learn  the  difference  between  living  and  getting  a 
living;  and  we  mistake  him  and  his  grade  of  culture  alto- 
gether if  he  does  not  stop  over  this  statement  and  wonder 
what  we  mean  by  it.  To  get  a  living,  to  make  money,  to 
become  "forehanded" — this  is  the  whole  of  life  to  agricultural 
multitudes,  discouraging  in  their  numbers  to  contemplate.  To 
them  there  is  no  difference  between  living  and  getting  a  living. 
Their  whole  life  consists  in  getting  a  living ;  and  when  their 
families  come  back  to  them  from  their  schooling,  and  find  that, 
really,  this  is  the  only  pursuit  that  has  any  recognition  under 
the  paternal  roof,  they  must  go  away.  The  boys  push  to  the 
centres  or  the  cities,  and  the  girls  follow  them  if  they  can.  A 
young  man  or  a  young  woman,  raised  to  the  point  where  they 
apprehend  the  difference  between  living  and  getting  a  living, 
can  never  be  satisfied  with  the  latter  alone.  Either  the  farm- 
er's children  must  be  kept  ignorant,  or  provision  must  be  made 


332 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


for  their  social  wants.  Brains  and  hearts  need  food  and  cloth- 
ing as  well  as 'bodies;  and  those  who  have  learned  to  recog- 
nize brains  and  hearts  as  the  best  and  most  important  part  of 
their  personal  possessions,  will  go  where  they  can  find  the 
ministry  they  need. 

What  is  the  remedy  ?  How  shall  farmers  manage  to  keep 
their  children  near  them  ?  How  can  we  discourage  the  influx 
of  unnecessary — nay,  burdensome — populations  into  the  cit- 
ies ?  We  answer :  By  making  agricultural  society  attractive. 
Fill  the  farm-houses  with  periodicals  and  books.  Establish 
central  reading-rooms,  or  neighorhood  clubs.  Encourage  the 
social  meetings  of  the  young.  Have  concerts,  lectures,  am- 
ateur dramatic  associations.  Establish  a  bright,  active,  social 
life,  that  shall  give  some  significance  to  labor.  Above  all, 
build,  as  far  as  possible,  in  villages.  It  is  better  to  go  a  mile 
to  one's  daily  labor  than  to  place  one's  self  a  mile  away  from 
a  neighbor.  The  isolation  of  American  farm-life  is  the  great 
curse  of  that  life,  and  it  falls  upon  the  women  with  a  hardship 
that  the  men  cannot  appreciate,  and  drives  the  educated 
young  away. 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR. 

EMPLOYERS  AND  EMPLOYED. 

The  relations  of  employer  and  employed  have  existed  since 
civilization  began.  Nothing  has  been  done  without  capital : 
nothing  has  been  done  without  labor.  To  realize  what  is  re- 
garded as  the  ideal  condition,  associations  of  laborers  with  capital 
have  been  organized, — co-proprietary  and  co-operative, — with 
varying  results.  After  all  attempts  of  this  kind,  the  fact  seems 
well  established  that  industrial  unions  and  partnerships  will 
never  become  the  rule,  and  that  labor  and  capital  will  respect- 
ively be  at  the  disposal  of  different  men.  Those  who  have 
labor  to  sell,  without  money  to  invest  in  the  materials  and  pro- 
ducts of  their  own  industry,  will  always  be  a  large  proportion 
of  the  community.  If  the  capital  of  the  world  were  to  be 
equally  divided  to-day,  it  would  not  take  a  month  to  re-establish 
the  old  division  of  capitalists  and  laborers.  There  are  organ- 
izing, directing,  controlling  minds,  which  would  manage  at 
once  to  win  capital,  and  employ  the  industry  of  others;  and 
even  the  accidents  of  life  would  make  many  poor  men  rich. 
There  is  no  possibility  of  maintaining  equality  of  condition 
among  men.  The  capitalist,  with  money  to  be  employed  in 
commerce,  agriculture  and  manufactures,  and  the  laborer,  with 
various  industry  and  skill  to  sell,  will  live  side  by  side  while  the 
world  stands.  The  natural  wish  of  the  first  will  always  be  to 


334 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


get  the  best  profit  he  can  on  his  money,  and  of  the  other  to 
get  the  best  price  he  can  for  his  labor. 

The  great,  practical  question  with  both  classes  concerns  the 
relations  that  exist  between  them.  Shall  those  relations  be 
friendly  and  harmonious,  or  discordant  and  inimical?  Is  there 
any  real  ground  for  opposition  and  jealousy?  The  strikes  of 
laborers,  the  formation  of  trades-unions,  the  speeches  uttered 
and  the  editorials  published  on  the  tyranny  of  capital,  show 
that  at  least  a  portion  of  the  laboring  community  consider 
themselves  aggrieved  by  those  who  employ  them.  To  some 
extent  this  is  undoubtedly  true.  There  are  men  who  would 
make  their  laborers  their  slaves,  and  who  would  gladly  obtain 
their  labor  at  the  lowest  price  compatible  with  the  maintenance 
of  their  laboring  power.  There  are  corporations  without  souls, 
which  have  no  more  consideration  for  the  muscles  and  the  skill 
that  they  employ  in  their  mills  and  shops,  than  they  have  for 
the  horses  employed  outside.  It  is  entirely  natural  for  labor 
to  organize  against  such  men  and  such  corporations,  and  to 
look  upon  them  as  enemies.  Where  personal  rights  are  unrec- 
ognized, where  capital  refuses  to  see  in  the  laborer  anything 
but  its  dependent  and  servant,  where  oppressions  are  practiced, 
there  will  and  must  be  rebellion.  The  man  or  the  corporation 
whose  supreme  object  is  to  get  the  most  out  of  the  laborer  for 
the  least  consideration  in  money,  will  be  sure  to  have  laborers 
who  will  aim  to  get  the  most  money  possible  for  the  smallest 
consideration  in  labor.  Laborers  will  do  this  independently  or 
in  combination,  and  their  action  will  be  entirely  justifiable, 
though  it  may  not  always  be  wise. 

The  iniquity  of  trades-unions  is  that  they  make  no  distinc 
tion  between  good  and  bad  employers,  and  breed  universal 
discontent  and  demoralization.  Even  in  this  day  of  wide  and 
deep  distress  among  capitalists, — this  day  of  shrunken  values 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR.  335 

and  business  stagnation, — when,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  poor, 
capital  would  greatly  prefer  to  lie  idle,  there  are  bands  of 
men  who  quarrel  with  their  wages,  and  feel  that  they  are 
badly  used. 

Now  we  believe  that  the  majority  of  employers  intend  to  do 
full  justice  to  those  whom  they  employ.  We  believe  that  in 
this  day  of  trial  and  loss,  there  are  men  who  are  doing  more 
than  they  can  afford  to  do,  in  order  to  keep  their  laborers 
from  distress.  At  this  time,  as  at  all  times,  they  are  the  sub- 
jects of  the  inexorable  law  of  demand  and  supply,  and  so, 
with  a  great  supply  and  no  demand,  they  stagger  feebly  along 
with  their  business,  that  those  dependent  on  them  may  be  fed. 
They  are  men  who  recognize  the  inter-dependence  of  labor  and 
capital,  and  are  willing  to  share  the  trials  of  the  time  with 
those  who  minister  to  their  prosperity  in  better  days* 

Now  labor  stultifies  itself  and  makes  itself  an  object  of 
contempt  when  it  fails  to  recognize  and  reward  a  just  and 
generous  disposition  on  the  part  of  capital.  A  laborer  who 
will  join  a  band  of  fellow-craftsmen  in  the  attempt  to  extort 
an  increase  of  wages  from  an  employer  who  uses  him  well  in 
adversity  and  fairly  in  prosperity,  surrenders  his  manhood, 
either  to  his  own  selfishness,  or  to  the  despotism  of  his  fellows. 
We  hope  strikes  have  done  good.  It  would  be  a  pity  that 
the  amount  of  suffering  they  have  caused  should  have  been  of 
no  avail.  If  they  have  checked  any  tendency  to  oppression 
on  the  part  of  capital;  if  they  have  taught  the  holder  of 
money  not  to  claim  too  much  of  the  profits  of  industry,  we 
are  glad.  But  we  are  sure  there  is  a  better  way,  and  that 
now  is  a  good  time  to  enter  upon  it.  It  is  a  good  time  for 
capitalists  to  ask  themselves  the  question  whether  they  have 
always  recognized  the  rights  of  labor,  and  given  it  an  ap- 
propriate reward — whether  they  have  ever  tried  to  win  the 


336  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

heart  of  labor — whether  they  have  given  it  brotherhood  and 
endeavored  to  minister  to  its  comfort,  happiness  and  elevation. 
It  is  a  good  time,  too,  for  the  laborer  to  ask  himself  the 
question  whether  he  has  always  sufficiently  considered  the 
fact  that  capital  runs  all  the  risk,  while  he  runs  none ;  that  it  is 
liable  to  be  destroyed  by  flame,  or  dissipated  in  financial  dis- 
aster; and  that  his  ability  to  feed  and  clothe  his  wife  and  little 
ones  depends  upon  the  prosperity  of  capital.  It  is  a  good 
time,  too,  for  him  to  remember  that  capital  bears  the  great 
burdens  of  society,  that  it  pays  the  enormous  taxes  of  the 
time,  that  it  supports  all  the  charities,  and  that,  whether  there 
is  labor  for  the  laborer  or  not,  the  laborer  is  fed.  It  is  a  good 
time  for  him  to  remember  that  in  the  last  resort  of  necessity, 
capital  does  not  permit  him  or  his  children  to  go  houseless  and 
without  bread. 

In  short,  it  is  a  good  time,  in  their  common  trouble,  for  the 
capitalist  and  the  laborer  to  learn  that  they  are  brethren,  and 
dependent  in  many  ways  upon  one  another.  When  this 
period  of  depression  passes  away,  as  it  must  soon, — for  the 
world  moves  on, — it  is  quite  possible  that  work  will  be  re- 
commenced upon  a  more  modest  basis  of  wages  on  one  side 
and  profits  on  the  other.  We  hope,  then,  that  employers  and 
employed  will  lay  aside  all  the  old  jealousies  and  resentments, 
and  learn  to  be  not  only  just  but  generous  towards  each 
other.  There  are  communities  in  America,  blessed  by  capital- 
ists who  share  in  many  ways  with  their  laborers  the  fruit  of 
their  prosperity.  Public  halls,  reading-rooms,  libraries,  com- 
fortable houses  and  the  best  schools,  bestowed  by  employers, 
have  made  some  manufacturing  villages  a  collection  of  intel- 
ligent and  happy  homes,  and  even  labor  itself  a  choice  priv- 
ilege. There  is  nothing  that  the  laborer  wants  so  much  as 
recognition  as  a  man,  and  a  chance  for  his  family.  When  the 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR.  33* 

employer  has  the  power  to  give  both  and  gives  both,  he  ought 
not  to  be  troubled  with  strikes  or  jealousies,  or  the  inefficiency 
of  those  who  do  his  work. 

THE  NEGLECT  OF  THE  RICH. 

If  any  of  the  millionaires  of  the  City  of  New  York  have 
felt  grieved  because  we  have  not  called  upon  them,  or  because 
we  lo  not  even  know  their  faces  when  we  happen  to  meet 
them,  we  beg  their  pardon.  We  have  had  no  intention  to 
slight  them,  or  to  count  them  out  of  the  circle  of  humanity 
by  reason  of  their  comparative  independence  of  it.  We  do 
not  blame  them  for  being  rich,  unless  they  have  procured 
their  wealth  by  oppression  of  the  poor.  Some  of  them  have 
become  rich  because  they  were  brighter  and  more  industrious 
than  the  rest  of  us,  and  recognized  quicker  than  we  the  elusive 
faces  of  golden  opportunites.  We  can  find  no  fault  with  them 
for  this,  but  rather  with  ourselves.  Some  of  them  inherited 
wealth,  and  have  no  responsibilities  concerning  it  save  those 
connected  with  the  spending  of  it.  Some  of  them  acquired 
it  by  accident — by  the  rise  of  real  estate  that  they  had  held, 
perhaps,  unwillingly,  or  by  an  unlooked-for  appreciation  of 
the  value  of  stocks.  However  their  wealth  may  have  been 
acquired — always  excepting  that  which  has  been  won  by  im- 
moral practices — we  wish  to  have  them  understand  that  we 
think  none  the  worse  of  them  for  their  pleasant  fortune.  We 
regard  them  still  as  men  and  brothers,  who  delight  in  the 
sympathy  of  their  fellows,  and  whose  hearts  are  warmed  by 
the  pcpular  confidence  and  good-will. 

WTe  confess  that  we  have  never  been  quite  able  to  under- 
stand why  it  is  that  those  who  have  been  fortunate  in  life 
should  be  compelled,  in  consequence,  to  sacrifice  their  early 
friendships  and  their  old  friends.     Two  boys  begin  life  together. 
22 


238  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

They  may,  or  may  not,  be  relatives;  but  they  are  bosom 
friends.  They  confide  to  one  another  their  plans  and  ambi- 
tions, and  start  out  on  the  race  for  fortune,  neck-and-neck. 
One  outstrips  the  other,  and  reaches  his  goal  gladly  and 
gratefully.  He  has  thrown  no  hinderances  in  the  path  of  his 
friend.  He  has,  on  the  contrary,  encouraged  him ;  and,  so 
far  as  it  was  proper  for  him  to  do  so,  given  him  assistance. 
Finding  at  last  that  he  is  hopelessly  floundering  in  the  way, 
or  that  he  has  tripped  and  fallen,  he  goes  back  to  him  to  ex- 
change a  friendly  word,  but  he  is  met  by  cold  looks  and 
averted  eyes.  The  successful  man  has  committed  no  sin 
except  that  of  becoming  successful.  He  has  lost  none  of 
his  affection  for  his  friend,  but  he  has  lost  his  friend.  Thence- 
forward there  is  between  the  two  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and 
that  gulf  is  fixed  by  the  unsuccessful  man.  He  has  taken 
to  himself  the  fancy  that  the  successful  man  must  hold  the 
unsuccessful  man  in  dishonor,  and  that  he  cannot  possibly 
meet  him  again  on  the  even  terms  which  existed  when  their 
lives  were  untried  plans. 

There  are  few  successful  men,  we  imagine,  who  have  not 
been  vexed  and  wounded  by  the  persistent  misapprehensions 
and  distrust  of  those  whom  they  loved  when  they  were  young, 
and  whom  they  would  still  gladly  love  if  they  could  be  per- 
mitted to  do  so.  There  is  not  an  hour,  on  any  day,  in  this 
city,  in  which  thriving  men  do  not  cross  the  street  to  meet  old 
friends  who,  because  they  are  not  thriving,  strive  to  avoid  them 
— not  an  hour  in  which  they  do  not  try  by  acts  of  courtesy 
and  hearty  good-will  to  hold  the  friendship  of  those  whom 
they  have  left  behind  in  the  strife  for  fortune.  Excepting  a 
few  churls  and  coxcombs,  they  all  do  this  until  they  get  thor- 
oughly tired  of  it,  and  finally  give  it  up  as  a  bad  job.  They 
know  that  they  have  done  their  duty.  They  know  that  they 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR. 


339 


have  not  entertained  a  thought  or  performed  an  act  of  wrong 
toward  those  who  shun  them.  Their  consciences  are  clear, 
and,  at  last — half  in  sorrow,  half  in  anger — they  consent  that 
the  knot  that  once  united  two  harmonious  lives  shall  be  sev- 
?red  forever. 

There  are  many  men  who  cannot  bear  prosperity  when  it 
comes  to  them,  but  their  number  is  small  compared  to  those 
who  cannot  bear  the  prosperity  of  others.  There  is  no  finer 
test  of  true  nobility  of  character  than  that  furnished  by  the 
effect  of  the  good  fortune  of  friends.  The  poor  man  who  re- 
joices in  the  prosperity  of  his  neighbor,  and  meets  him  always 
Avithout  distrust  and  with  unshaken  self-respect,  betrays  uncon- 
sciously a  nature  and  character  which  a  king  might  envy.  To 
such  a  man  every  rich  man  bows  with  cordial  recognition,  while 
he  cannot  fail  to  regard  with  contempt  the  insolent  churl  who 
meets  him  with  bravado  and  the  offensive  assertion  of  an 
equality  which  he  does  not  feel,  as  well  as  the  cowardly  sneak 
who  avoids  and  distrusts  him. 

A  great  deal  is  said  about  the  insolence  of  riches  and  the 
neglect  or  disregard  of  the  poor  on  the  part  of  those  who 
possess  them,  but,  in  sober  truth,  there  is  a  neglect  of  the  rich 
on  the  part  of  the  poor  that  is  quite  as  unjust  and  quite  as 
hard  to  bear.  If  there  is  a  gulf  between  the  rich  man  and  the 
poor  man,  the  latter  does  quite  as  much  to  dig  it  and  keep  it 
open  as  the  former.  There  are  multitudes  of  rich  men  whose 
wealth  has  the  tendency  to  enlarge  their  sympathies,  and  to 
fill  them  with  good-will,  particularly  toward  all  those  whom  they 
have  known  in  their  less  prosperous  years.  To  these  men  of 
generous  natures  the  loss  of  sympathy  and  friendship  is  a  griev- 
ous deprivation. 

Money  does  not  make  the  man.  The  poor  man  will  tell  us 
this  as  if  he  believed  it,  but  either  he  does  not  believe'  it,  or  he 


340 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


believes  that  the  rich  man  does  not  believe  it;  certainly,  in  his 
intercourse  with  the  rich  man,  he  does  not  manifest  his  faith  in 
this  universally  accepted  maxim.  He  merely  accepts  the  rich 
man's  courtesies  as  condescension  and  patronage,  and  is  of- 
fended by  them.  No;  let  no  poor  man  talk  of  the  pride  and 
superciliousness  of  riches  until  his  self-respectful  poverty  is 
ready  to  meet  those  riches  half  way,  and  to  have  faith  in  the 
good-will  and  common  human  sympathy  of  those  who  bear 
them. 

STRIKE,  BUT  HEAR. 

We  suppose  that  there  is  nothing  simpler  than  simple  addi- 
tion, excepting,  perhaps,  those  people  who  have  no  talent  for 
it,  of  whom,  unfortunately,  there  is  a  considerable  number,  es- 
pecially among  the  striking  craftsmen.  If  it  were  to  be  an- 
nounced to-day  that  ten  dollars  will  hereafter  be  the  average 
price  of  a  day's  labor,  among  all  the  trades,  we  do  not  doubt 
that  it  would  be  regarded  by  the  toiling  multitudes  as  the  glad- 
dest and  grandest  event  that  had  ever  occurred  in  the  history 
of  the  national  industry.  Let  us  see,  then,  if  we  can,  what  the 
effect  of  such  an  advance  in  the  price  of  labor  would  be.  This 
is  a  rich  country;  and  every  rich  country  has  a  multitude  of 
artificial  wants.  To  supply  these  wants,  there  have  been  organ- 
ized a  large  number  of  productive  industries;  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  laborers  are  fed  by  them.  The  first  effect  of  a 
doubling  of  the  price  of  labor  would  be  to  destroy  all  those 
industries  which  are  engaged  in  producing  things  that  men  and 
women  can  do  without.  When  the  price  of  the  necessaries  of 
life  is  raised,  the  use  of  luxuries  is  reduced  in  a  corresponding 
degree.  This  law  is  just  as  unvarying  in  its  operation  as  the 
law  of  gravitation.  A  man  who  spends  $10,000  a  year,  giving 
$2,000  -of  it  to  luxuries,  drops  his  luxuries,  and  spends  his 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR.  341 

$10,000  on  a  smaller  number  of  people.  He  dismisses  a  serv- 
ant, and  gives  up  his  carriage.  He  stops  buying  flowers  and 
giving  entertainments.  Every  man  and  woman  who  had  any- 
thing to  do  in  feeding  his  artificial  wants  loses  his  patronage; 
and  thus  whole  classes  of  people  would,  by  such  an  advance 
in  the  price  of  labor,  be  thrown  out  of  employment  and  into 
distress.  This,  however,  would  be  only  an  indirect  or  inciden- 
tal damage  to  the  laboring  interest,  though  it  would  be  a  dam- 
age to  that  interest  alone.  The  rich  would  really  suffer  very 
little  by  it. 

There  are  certain  things  that  we  must  all  have — the  rich  and 
the  poor  alike — houses  to  live  in,  clothes  to  wear,  and  bread 
and  meat  to  eat.  What  effect  would  such  a  change  have  upon 
these  ?  A  house  that  cost  $3,000  to  build  yesterday,  will  cost 
$6,000  to-morrow.  The  brickmaker,  the  stone-cutter,  the  ma- 
son, the  carpenter,  all  working  at  double  wages,  would,  by  that 
very  fact,  advance  the  price  of  their  own  rent  in  a  correspond- 
ing degree.  The  tenement  that  rents  for  $250  to-day  will  rent 
for  $500  to-morrow,  and  if  it  cannot  be  rented  for  that  sum,  it 
will  not  be  built  at  all.  The  same  thing  will  be  true  concern- 
ing what  are  called  the  necessaries  of  life.  If  it  costs  twice  as 
much  money  to  produce  a  barrel  of  flour  to-day  as  it  did  yes- 
terday, it  will  double  in  price.  Every  article  of  produce,  every 
garment  that  we  buy  for  ourselves  or  our  children,  will  have 
added  to  its  price  exactly  what  has  been  added  to  the  cost  of 
its  production  or  manufacture;  and  when  this  excess  has  been 
added  to  the  excess  of  rent,  the  laborer  will  find  himself  at  the 
end  of  his  first  year  no  whit  benefited  by  what  seemed  to  hold 
the  promise  of  a  fortune.  We  cannot  imagine  a  man  with 
common  sense  enough  to  labor  intelligently  who  will  be  unable 
to  see  at  a  glance  that  our  conclusions  on  this  point  are  inevi- 
table. 


342 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


Now  there  is  beyond  this  direct  result  of  a  doubling  of  the 
price  of  labor  an  indirect  effect  upon  the  price  of  real  estate, 
which  greatly  enhances  the  trouble  of  the  laborer.  The  de- 
struction of  various  branches  of  industry,  and  the  rendering  of 
other  branches  either  precarious  or  insufficient  in  their  profits, 
would  inevitably  concentrate  capital,  so  far  as  possible,  upon 
real  estate.  Idle  or  poorly-employed  capital  is  always  seeking 
for  an  investment;  and  if  banking  and  manufacturing  and 
trade  become  unprofitable,  through  a  disturbance  of  just  re- 
lations between  labor  and  capital,  the  man  who  has  money  puts 
it  into  real  estate.  Under  this  stimulus  real  estate  rises  at 
once.  If  the  price  of  labor  were  doubled,  the  advance  in  rents 
from  this  cause  alone  would  not  only  be  appreciable  but  decid- 
edly onerous.  The  inevitable  tendency  of  every  strike  is  to 
drive  capital  out  of  manufacturing  into  real  estate,  to  raise  the 
price  of  real  estate,  and  to  raise  the  laborer's  rent. 

We  have  supposed  this  extreme  case  in  order  to  show  the 
laborer,  as  we  could  do  in  no  other  way,  the  tendency  of  his 
measures  to  secure  large  wages  by  arbitrary  means.  That 
there  is  a  point  beyond  which  it  is  not  safe  for  him  to  go,  is  just 
as  demonstrable  as  any  problem  in  mathematics.  There  is  a 
point  beyond  which  it  is  not  safe  for  him  to  push  his  demand 
for  increased  wages,  or  for  fewer  hours  of  labor,  which  is  the 
same  thing.  Our  impression  is  that  he  has  reached  that  point, 
and  we  are  speaking  in  his  interest  entirely.  The  labor  market 
should  always  be  in  that  condition  which  tends  to  draw  capital 
away  from  real  estate.  Then  rents  will  be  low.  provisions  will 
stand  at  a  reasonable  price,  every  hand  will  find  sufficient  em- 
ployment with  sufficient  pay,  and  labor  and  capital  be  mutually 
dependent  friends.  We  sympathize  with  every  effort  of  the 
laborer  to  better  his  condition,  and  our  simple  wish  is  to  warn 
him  against  supposing  that  increased  wages  beyond  a  certain 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR. 


343 


point,  which  he  seems  already  to  have  reached,  will  be  of 
the  slightest  use  to  him.  There  is  an  average  price  for  a 
day's  labor  which  capital  can  afford  to  pay,  and  which  alone 
labor  can  afford  to  receive.  Beyond  this  all  is  disorder,  injus- 
tice, and  pecuniary  adversity  and  loss  to  every  class.  The  ex- 
torted dollar  which  capital  cannot  afford  to  give  to  labor  is  a 
curse  to  the  hand  that  receives  it. 

SOMETHING  THAT  WEALTH  CAN  DO  FOR  LABOR. 

However  much  of  perplexity  may  surround  the  questions 
arising  from  the  relations  of  wealth  to  labor,  there  are  some 
aspects  of  these  questions  about  which  we  are  sure  there  ought 
not  to  be  a  very  great  difference  of  opinion.  A  man  has  a 
right  to  get  rich.  There  is  not  a  laborer  in  the  country  who  is 
not  personally  interested  in  the  universal  recognition  of  this 
right.  The  desire  for  wealth  is  a  legitimate  spur  to  endeavor, 
a  good  motive  to  the  exercise  of  wholesome  economy,  and  a 
worthy  incentive  to  honest  and  honorable  work.  It  is  not  the 
highest  motive  of  life,  but  there  is  nothing  wrong  or  unworthy 
in  it,  so  long  as  it  is  held  in  subordination  to  personal  integrity 
and  neighborly  good-will.  There  always  will  be  rich  men  and 
there  always  ought  to  be  rich  men.  There  must  be  accumula- 
tions and  combinations  of  capital,  else  there  will  be  no  fields 
of  labor  and  enterprise  into  which,  for  the  winning  of  livelihood 
and  wealth,  the  new  generations  may  enter.  We  may  go  fur- 
ther and  say  that  there  always  will  be,  and  always  ought  to  be, 
laborers.  Men  are  born  into  the  world  who  are  better  adapted 
to  labor  with  the  hands  than  with  the  head, — better  adapted  to 
production  than  trade;  better  adapted  to  execution  than  inven- 
tion. Nobody  is  to  blame  for  this.  It  is  the  order  of  nature, 
and,  being  the  order  of  nature,  it  is  wise.  The  world  could 
not  move  were  the  facts  different.  By  the  capital  and  the  busi- 


344  E  VER  y  DAY  TOPICS. 

ness  capacity  of  one  man,  whole  neighborhoods  and  towns 
made  up  of  laborers  thrive  and  rear  their  families;  and  the  re- 
lations between  the  head  and  the  hands  of  such  towns  and 
neighborhoods  seem,  and  doubtless  are,  perfectly  natural  and 
perfectly  healthful. 

It  is  not  with  the  fact  that  a  man  is  rich  that  the  representa- 
tives of  labor  quarrel,  for  the  representatives  of  labor  would  all 
like  to  become  rich  themselves.  What  they  particularly  desire 
is  to  become  richer  than  they  are.  What  they  supremely  desire 
is  to  share  in  the  wealth  which  they  see  others  accumulating. 
This,  of  course,  can  never  be  done,  except  by  a  natural  busi- 
ness process.  Practical  co-operation  and  the  assumption  of 
the  same  business  risks  to  which  capitalists  expose  themselves, 
and  the  exercise  of  the  same  business  capacity,  can  alone  give 
to  labor  all  the  wealth  which  it  produces.  All  the  friends  of 
labor — and  there  are  multitudes  of  them  among  the  rich — will 
rejoice  in  any  success  which  co-operation  and  a  combination  of 
small  savings  will  give  to  it.  There  is  no  other  mode  of  pro- 
cedure that  is  healthy  or  even  legitimate.  Strikes  and  trades- 
unions  and  all  organized  efforts  for  forcing  up  wages  are  just 
as  unnatural  and  outrageous  and  tyrannical  as  combinations 
of  capital  are  for  the  reduction  of  wages  or — what  is  prac- 
tically and  morally  the  same — for  raising  the  cost  of  the 
means  of  living.  Capital  has  something  to  complain  of 
as  well  as  labor  in  the  matter  of  service  and  wages.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly and  undeniably  as  difficult  to  get  a  day's  work  done 
by  skillful  and  conscientious  hands  as  it  is  to  get  a  fair  reward 
for  such  work;  and  so  long  as  this  shall  remain  true  it  becomes 
labor  to  be  modest  and  somewhat  careful  in  its  demands. 

After  the  Chicago  fire,  three  friends  met,  two  of  whom  had 
been  burned  out  of  house  and  home  and  the  immense  accu- 
mulations of  successful  lives.  One  of  the  unfortunates  said  to 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR. 


345 


the  other  two :  "  Well,  thank  God,  there  was  s:)me  of  my 
money  placed  where  it  couldn't  burn!" — saying  which  he 
turned  upon  his  heel  cheerfully,  and  went  to  work  at  his  new 
life.  His  brother  in  misfortune  turned  to  his  companion  and 
said:  "That  man  gave  away  last  year  nearly  a  million  of  dol- 
lars, and  if  I  had  not  been  a  fool  I  should  have  done  the  same 
thing."  This  brings  us  to  what  we  wish  to  say  in  this  article, 
viz.:  that  it  is  not  wealth  that  is  objectionable, — all  the  wealth 
that  a  man  can  use  for  his  own  benefit  and  the  benefit  of  his 
family  and  heirs — but  the  superfluous  wealth,  that  is  both  a 
care  and  a  curse — superfluous  wealth  that  goes  on  piling  up  by 
thousands  and  millions  while  great  public  charities  go  begging, 
while  institutions  of  learning  languish,  while  thousands  are 
living  from  hand  to  mouth,  while  the  sittings  of  churches  are 
so  costly  that  the  poor  cannot  take  them,  while  halls  and  libra- 
ries and  reading-rooms  are  not  established  in  communities 
in  which  they  are  needed  to  keep  whole  generations  of 
young  men  from  going  to  perdition,  and  while  a  thousand 
good  things  are  not  done  which  only  that  superfluous  wealth 
can  possibly  do. 

What,  in  fact,  does  the  laborer  want?  He  would  like 
wealth,  but  will  be  entirely  content  (if  demagogues  will  let 
him  alone),  if  he  can  have  some  of  those  civilizing  and  ele- 
vating privileges  which  only  wealth  can  purchase.  If  the 
laborer,  at  the  close  of  his  day  or  week  of  toil,  can  walk  into 
a  nice  reading-room  and  library,  in  which  he  has  the  fullest 
right  and  privilege;  if,  on  Sunday,  he  can  enter  a  church 
which  superfluous  wealth  has  made  his  own ;  if  he  can  send 
his  ambitious  and  talented  boy  to  college,  and  so  give  to  him 
the  same  chance  to  rise  in  the  world  as  that  enjoyed  by  the 
son  of  his  employer ;  if  he  can  feel  that  if  great  disaster 
should  come  upon  him  there  are  funds  which  wealth  has  pro- 


346 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


vided  to  save  him  from  want — funds  which  he  knows  were 
dug  by  labor  out  of  the  earth,  and  are  thus  returned  to  labor 
by  those  who  have  accumulated  more  than  they  need,  he  will 
be  content  and  happy,  and  he  ought  to  be.  Now  let  us  go 
still  further,  and  declare  that,  as  a  rule,  he  ought  to  have  all 
these  possessions  and  privileges.  It  is  reasonable  for  him  to 
ask  for  and  expect  them.  For  this  country  to  go  on  as  it  is 
going  now,  is  to  bring  upon  it  even  a  worse  state  of  things 
than  at  present  exists  in  England,  if  such  a  consummation  be 
possible.  There  are,  literally,  millions  of  men  in  England  who 
labor  in  utter  hopelessness.  Every  one  of  them  knows  that  he 
must  work  for  bread  while  he  can  get  work,  and  while  he  can 
stand,  and  that  then  there  is  nothing  before  him  but  death  or 
the  work-house.  Think  of  an  alternative  like  this  standing  in 
the  near  or  distant  future  before  millions  of  workers !  It  is 
enough  to  make  a  mountain  shudder.  Yet  there  are  thou- 
sands of  men  in  England  who  keep  lands  for  game,  and  can 
only  spend  their  incomes  by  squandering  them  on  vice  and 
fashionable  ostentation.  In  this  country  the  process  is  begun. 
Gigantic  fortunes  are  growing  up  on  every  hand.  There  are 
already  many  men  who  are  worth  many  millions  of  dollars. 
The  men  of  superfluous  wealth  in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
have  it  in  their  power  to  settle  some  of  the  most  important 
questions  that  are  now  up,  and  are  likely  to  arise,  between 
capital  and  labor.  They  also  have  it  in  their  power  to  make 
their  names  immortal  as  benefactors  of  their  country,  and 
of  that  great  interest  out  of  whose  productive  energy  every 
dollar  they  hold  has  been  drawn. 

The  superfluous  wealth  held  in  this  country  would  found 
ten*  thousand  scholarships  in  the  various  colleges  of  the  United 
States  for  the  poor,  furnish  every  town  with  a  respectable 
library  and  reading-room,  give  sittings  in  churches  to  ten 


THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR.  347 

millions  of  people  who  have  none,  and  found  hospitals  and 
funds  of  relief  for  labor  to  meet  all  emergencies.  Nay,  what 
is  more,  and  in  some  respects  better,  it  could  lend  in  many  in- 
stances to  labor  the  capital  necessary  to  secure  the  profits  upon 
its  own  expenditures.  Superfluous  wealth  can  certainly  do  all 
this.  Is  there  any  man  who  holds  it,  and  who,  placing  his 
hand  upon  his  heart  and  lifting  his  face,  dares  to  say  that  he 
has  no  duties  that  lie  in  these  directions  ? 

Let  us  take  a  very  simple  case  for  the  illustration  of  our 
point.  In  a  certain  Western  State  there  is  a  firm  engaged  in 
the  manufacture  and  sale  of  lumber.  They  own  immense 
tracts  of  pine  lands,  employ  twelve  hundred  laborers,  turn  out 
seventy-five  million  feet  of  lumber  annually,  and  make  half  a 
million  of  dollars  every  year,  more  or  less.  Now,  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  will  pay  them  royally  for  their  time,  an 
equal  sum  will  give  a  large  percentage  on  their  capital  in- 
vested, and  yet  not  one-half  of  their  income  is  exhausted. 
Here  are  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  left  which  go  to  the 
accumulations  of  superfluous  wealth.  Now,  for  these  em- 
ployers to  imagine  that  their  duties  to  these  twelve  hundred 
laborers  are  all  done  when  they  have  paid  them  their  wages, 
is  shamefully  to  fail  to  find  the  divine  significance  of  oppor- 
tunities. To  educate,  to  christianize,  to  develop,  to  make 
happy  and  self-respectful,  to  found  homes  for  and  protect  and 
prosper  these  people,  is  the  office  of  the  superfluous  wealth 
won  from  the  profits  of  their  work.  We  venture  to  say  that 
in  no  community  in  which  the  superfluous  wealth  is  used  in 
this  way  will  there  ever  be  any  questions  between  wealth  and 
labor  that  are  hard  to  settle.  The  holders  of  such  wealth, 
wherever  they  may  be,  bear  mainly  in  their  hands  the  respon- 
sibility of  whatever  difficulties  may  hereafter  arise  between 
wealth  and  labor  in  the  United  States.  Let  them  look  to  it 
and  be  wise. 


POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  MEN. 

THE  GENTLEMAN  IN  POLITICS. 

We  do  not  doubt  that  many  thousands  have  shared  with  MS 
the  pleasure  of  reading  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid's  Dartmouth  ad- 
dress, on  "The  Scholar  in  Politics."  The  programme  of  active 
influence  which  he  spreads  before  the  American  scholar  is 
sufficiently  extensive,  and  the  arguments  by  which  he  com- 
mends it  for  adoption  sufficiently  strong  and  sound.  Yet  the 
question  has  occurred  to  us  whether,  after  all,  Mr.  Carlyle's 
"Able  Man,"  and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  "Thinker,"  and  Mr. 
Reid's  "  Scholar,"  who  are  one  and  the  same  person,  are  quite 
sufficient  for  the  just  and  satisfactory  handling  of  the  matters 
which  this  address  spreads  before  us  in  detail.  "  How  are  you 
going  to  punish  crime  ?  "  We  do  not  quite  see  what  schojar- 
ship  has  to  do  with  the  settlement  of  that  question,  or  what  the 
scholar  has  to  do  with  it,  specially,  beyond  other  men.  "  How 
are  you  going  to  stop  official  stealing  ?  "  The  question  may 
interest  the  scholar,  and  he  ought,  indeed,  to  assist  in  settling 
it  aright ;  but  as  a  scholar,  specially,  we  do  not  see  what  he  can 
do,  or  may  be  expected  to  do,  beyond  other  men.  "  How  are 
you  going  to  control  your  corporations  ?  "  Here  cultivated 
brains  may  help  us  to  do  something — to  contrive  something; 
yet,  after  all,  what  we  want  is  not  the  way  to  control  corpora- 
tions, but  corporations  that  do  not  need  to  be  controlled. 


POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  MEN.  349 

"What  shall  be  the  relations  between  capital  and  labor?" 
The  scholar  ought  to  be  able  to  help  us  here.  "What  shall 
be  done  with  our  Indians  ?  "  "  How  may  we  best  appoint  our 
civil  officers  ?  "  These  questions,  with  others  relating  to  uni- 
versal suffrage  and  the  unlimited  annexation  of  inferior  races, 
make  up  Mr.  Reid's  very  solid  and  serious  catalogue. 

There  is  work  enough,  legitimate  work,  for  the  American 
scholar,  in  the  study  and  intelligent  handling  of  these  ques- 
tions; but  the  fact  that  there  is  a  considerable  number  of 
American  scholars  mixed  up  with  every  scheme  of  iniquity  in 
the  country  leads  us  to  suspect  that  the  country  is  not  to  be 
saved  by  scholarship  alone.  There  are  two  sides  to  the 
matter,  as  there  are  to  most  matters.  In  our  late  civil  war, 
it  was  West  Point  pitted  against  West  Point,  each  side  being 
actuated  by  its  own  independent  ideas  of  duty  and  patriotism. 
Military  scholarship  had  a  very  important  office  to  perform  in 
settling  the  question  between  the  two  sections  of  the  country, 
but  it  had  to  struggle  with  military  scholarship  in  order  to  do 
it.  We  do  not  know  why  we  are  not  quite  as  likely  to  find 
the  scholar  on  the  wrong  side  as  on  the  right  side  of  politics. 
Mr.  Bancroft  and  Mr.  Everett  were  neighbors  once.  They 
represented  the  height  of  scholarly  culture,  and  the  two  ex- 
tremes of  political  opinion.  They  certainly  assisted  in  making 
respectable  whatever  was  bad  in  the  party  to  which  they 
respectively  belonged,  whatever  else  they  did  or  failed  to  do. 
All  that  we  wish  to  say,  in  dissent  from  Mr.  Reid,  or  rather, 
in  addition  to  him,  is  that  scholarship  does  not  necessarily  lead 
to  any  common  good  conclusion  in  politics,  and  that  it  may 
be,  or  may  become,  as  base  as  any  other  element. 

What  we  really  want  is  gentlemen  in  politics.  If  our  polit- 
ical men  were  only  gentlemen,  even  if  they  were  no  more  than 
ordinarily  intelligent,  we  should  find  our  political  affairs  in  a 


35° 


E  VER  Y  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


good  condition,  and  the  great  questions  that  stand  before  us  in 
a  fair  way  of  being  properly  adjusted.  A  gentleman  is  a  per- 
son who  knows  something  of  the  world,  who  possesses  dignity 
and  self-respect,  who  recognizes  the  rights  of  others  and  the 
duties  he  owes  to  society  in  all  his  relations,  who  would  as  soon 
commit  suicide  as  stain  his  palm  with  a  bribe,  who  would  not 
degrade  himself  by  intrigues.  There  are  various  types  of  gen- 
tlemen, too,  and  the  higher  the  type  the  better  the  politician. 
If  his  character  and  conduct  are  based  on  sound  moral  princi- 
ple— if  he  is  governed  by  the  rule  of  right — that  is  better  than 
mere  pride  of  character  or  gentlemanly  instinct.  If,  beyond  all, 
he  is  a  man  of  faith  and  religion — a  Christian  gentleman — he 
is  the  highest  type  of  a  gentleman;  and  in  his  hands  the  ques- 
tions which  Mr.  Reid  has  proposed  to  the  scholar  would  have 
the  fairest  handling  that  men  are  capable  of  givingthem.  The 
more  the  Christian  gentleman  knows,  the  better  politician  he 
will  make,  and  in  him,  and  in  him  only,  will  scholarship  come 
to  its  finest  issues  in  politics.  We  do  not  think  that  the  worst 
feature  of  our  politics  is  lack  of  intelligence  in  our  politicians. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  cultivated  brain  in  Congress.  Public 
questions  are  understood  and  intelligently  discussed  there. 
Even  there,  it  is  not  always  that  scholarship  shows  superior 
ability.  Men  who  show  their  capacity  to  manage  affairs  are 
quite  as  apt  to  come  from  the  plainly  educated  as  from  the 
ranks  of  scholarship.  Congress  does  not  suffer  from  lack 
of  knowledge  and  culture  half  as  much  as  it  does  from  lack  of 
principle.  It  is  the  men  who  push  personal  and  party  purposes 
that  poison  legislation.  If  Congress  were  composed  of  gen- 
tlemen, we  could  even  dispense  with  what  scholars  we  have, 
and  be  better  off  than  we  are  to-day. 

In  the  government  of  our  cities,  we  could  very  well  afford 
to  get  along  without  scholars,  if  we  could  have  only  modestly 


POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  ME.V. 


351 


educated  gentlemen.  If  the  heavy-jawed,  florid-faced,  full- 
bellied,  diamond-brooched  bully  who  now  typifies  the  city  pol- 
itician were  put  to  his  appropriate  work  of  railroad-building,  or 
superintending  gangs  of  ignorant  workmen,  and  there  could  be 
put  in  his  place  good,  quiet  business  men,  of  gentlemanly  in- ' 
stincts  and  of  sound  moral  principle,  we  could  get  along  very 
comfortably  without  the  scholar,  though  there  would  not  be 
the  slightest  objection  to  him.  In  brief,  we  want  better  men 
than  we  have,  a  great  deal  more  than  we  want  brighter  or  bet- 
ter educated  men.  Scholarship  is  a  secondary,  rather  than  a, 
primary  consideration :  the  gentleman  first,  the  scholar,  if  he 
is  a  gentleman,  and  not  otherwise.  If  Christian  gentlemen 
were  in  power,  many  of  the  questions  that  appeal  to  us  for  set- 
tlement would  settle  themselves.  We  should  not  be  called  up 
on,  for  instance,  to  stop  official  stealing.  Instead  of  trying 
to  ascertain  how  we  shall  punish  murder,  we  should  dry  up 
the  fountains  of  murder.  Instead  of  seeking  a  mode  of  con- 
trolling corporations,  we  should  only  need  to  find  some  mode 
of  putting  only  gentlemen  into  corporations.  Our  laws  are 
good  enough  in  the  main:  we  want  them  executed,  and  in 
order  that  they  may  be  executed,  we  need  a  judiciary  of 
Christian  gentlemen,  with  executive  officers,  loyal  to  the  law. 
As  long  as  notorious  scamps,  scholarly  or  otherwise,  are  in 
power,  not  much  headway  can  be  made  in  politics.  Until  we 
demand  something  more  and  something  better  in  our  politicians 
than  knowledge  or  scholarship,  until  we  demand  that  they 
shall  be  gentlemen,  we  shall  take  no  step  forward.  George 
Washington  got  along  very  well  as  a  politician  on  a  limited 
capital  of  culture,  and  a  very  large  one  of  patriotism  and  per- 
sonal dignity.  Aaron  Burr  was  a  scholar,  whose  lack  of  prin- 
ciple spoiled  him  for  any  good  end  in  politics,  and  made  his 
name  a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of  his  country. 


352 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


THE  BANE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  prolific  source  of  all  our 
notable  political  corruption  is  office-seeking.  Almost  never 
does  a  political  office  come  to  a  man  in  this  country  unsought; 
and  the  exceptions  are  very  rarely  creditable  to  political 
purity.  When  men  are  sought  for,  and  adopted  as  candidates 
for  office,  it  is,  ninety-nine  times  in  every  hundred,  because 
they  are  available  for  the  objects  of  a  party.  Thus  it  is  that 
selfish  or  party  interest,  and  not  the  public  good,  becomes  the 
ruling  motive  in  all  political  preferment :  and  the  results  are 
the  legitimate  fruit  of  the  motive.  Out  of  this  motive  spring 
all  the  intrigues,  bargains,  sales  of  influence  and  patronage, 
briberies,  corruptions  and  crookednesses  that  make  our  poli- 
tics a  reproach  and  our  institutions  a  by-word  among  the  na- 
tions. We  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  our  government  popular, 
and  of  fancying  that  we  have  a  good  deal  to  do  in  the  man- 
agement of  our  own  affairs ;  but  we  would  like  to  ask  those 
who  may  chance  to  read  this  paper  how  much,  beyond  the 
casting  of  their  votes,  they  have  ever  had  to  do  with  the 
government  of  the  nation.  Have  they  ever  done  more  than 
to  vote  for  those  who  have  managed  to  get  themselves  selected 
as  candidates  for  office,  or  those  who,  for  party  reasons,  de- 
termined exclusively  by  party  leaders — themselves  seekers  for 
power  or  plunder — have  been  selected  by  others  ?  It  is  all  a 
"  Ring,"  and  has  been  for  years;  and  we,  the  people,  are 
called  upon  to  indorse  and  sustain  it. 

To  indorse  and  sustain  the  various  political  rings  is  the 
whole  extent,  practically,  of  the  political  privileges  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States.  The  fact  is  abominable  and  shame- 
ful, but  it  is  a  fact  "  which  nobody  can  deny."  It  humiliates 
one  to  make  the  confession,  but  it  is  true  that  very  rarely  is 
any  man  nominated  for  a  high  office  who  is  so  much  above 


POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  MEN.  353 

reproach  and  so  manifestly  the  choice  of  the  people  that  his 
sworn  supporters  do  not  feel  compelled  to  sustain  him  by  lies 
and  romances  and  all  sorts  of  humbuggery.  The  people  are 
treated  like  children.  Songs  are  made  for  them  to  sing. 
Their  eyes  are  dazzled  with  banners  and  processions,  and 
every  possible  effort  is  made  to  induce  them  to  believe  that 
the  candidate  is  precisely  what  he  is  not  and  never  was — the 
candidate  of  the  people.  Our  candidates  are  all  the  candi- 
dates of  the  politicians,  and  never  those  of  the  people.  Our 
choice  is  a  choice  between  evils,  and  to  this  we  are  forced. 
Second  and  third-rate  men,  dangerous  men,  men  devoured  by 
the  greed  for  power  and  place,  men  without  experience  in 
statesmanship,  men  who  have  made  their  private  pledges  of 
consideration  for  services  promised,  men  who  have  selected 
themselves,  or  who  have  been  selected  entirely  because  they 
can  be  used,  are  placed  before  us  for  our  suffrages,  and  we  are 
compelled  to  a  choice  between  them.  Thus,  year  after  year, 
doing  the  best  we  seem  to  be  able  to  do,  we  are  used  in  the 
interest  of  men  and  cliques  who  have  no  interest  to  serve  but 
their  own. 

And  all  this  in  the  face  of  the  patent  truth  that  an  office- 
seeker  is,  by  the  very  vice  of  his  nature,  character,  and  position, 
the  man  who  ought  to  be  avoided  and  never  indorsed  or 
favored.  There  is  something  in  the  greed  itself,  and  more  in 
the  immodesty  of  its  declaration  in  any  form,  which  make 
him  the  legitimate  object  of  distrust  and  popular  contempt. 
Office-seeking  is  not  the  calling  of  a  gentleman.  No  man 
with  self-respect  and  the  modesty  that  accompanies  real  ex- 
cellence of  character  and  genuine  sensibility  can  possibly 
place  himself  in  the  position  of  an  office-seeker,  and  enter 
upon  the  intrigues  with  low-minded  and  mercenary  men, 
which  are  necessary  to  the  securing  of  his  object.  It  is  a  de- 
23 


354  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

basing,  belittling,  ungentlemanly  business.  It  takes  from  him 
any  claim  to  popular  respect  which  a  life  of  worthy  labor  may 
have  won,  and  brands  him  as  a  man  of  vulgar  instincts  and 
weak  character.  We  marvel  at  the  corruptions  of  politics, 
but  why  should  we  marvel  ?  It  is  the  office-seekers  who  are 
in  office.  It  is  the  men  who  have  sold  their  manhood  for 
power  that  we  have  assisted  to  place  there,  obeying  the  com- 
mands or  yielding  to  the  wishes  of  our  political  leaders.  It  is 
notorious  that  our  best  men  are  not  in  politics,  and  cannot  be 
induced  to  er^ter  the  field,  and  that  our  political  rewards  and 
honors  are  bestowed  upon  those  who  are  base  enough  to  ask 
for  them. 

A  few  of  the  great  men  of  the  nation  have,  during  the  last 
thirty  years,  yielded  to  that  which  was  meanest  in  them,  and 
become  seekers  for  the  august  office  of  the  presidency.  Now 
to  wish  for  a  high  place  of  power  and  usefulness  is  a  worthy 
ambition,  especially  when  it  is  associated  with  those  gifts  and 
that  culture  which  accord  with  its  dignities  and  render  one  fit 
for  its  duties ;  but  to  ask  for  it,  and  intrigue  for  it,  and  shape 
the  policy  of  a  life  for  it,  is  the  lowest  depth  to  which  volun- 
tary degradation  can  go.  These  men,  every  one  of  them, 
have  come  out  from  the  fruitless  chase  with  garments  draggled, 
and  reputation  damaged,  and  the  lesson  of  a  great  life — lived 
faithfully  out  upon  its  own  plane — forever  spoiled.  How 
much  more  purely  would  the  names  of  Webster,  and  Clay, 
and  Cass  shine  to-day  had  they  never  sought  for  the  highest 
place  of  power;  and  how  insane  are  those  great  men  now 
living  who  insist  on  repeating  their  mistakes !  It  would  be 
ungracious  to  write  the  names  of  these,  and  it  is  a  sad  reflec- 
tion that  it  is  not  necessary.  They  rise  as  quickly  to  him 
who  reads  as  to  him  who  writes.  The  great,  proud  names  are 
dragged  from  their  heights,  and  made  the  foot-balls  of  the  po- 


POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  MEN.  355 

litical  arena.  The  lofty  heads  are  bowed,  and  the  pure  vest- 
ments are  stained.  Never  again,  while  time  lasts,  can  they 
stand  where  they  have  stood.  They  have  made  voluntary 
exposure  of  their  weakness,  and  dropped  into  fatal  depths  of 
popular  contempt.  Now,  when  we  remember  that  we  are 
ruled  mainly  by  men  who  differ  from  these  only  in  the  fact 
that  they  are  smaller,  and  have  not  fallen  so  far  because  they 
had  not  so  far  to  fall,  we  can  realize  something  of  the  degra- 
dation which  we  have  ourselves  received  in  placing  them  in 
power. 

What  is  our  remedy?  We  confess  that  we  are  well-nigh 
hopeless  in  the  matter.  Bread  and  butter  are  vigilant.  Poli- 
tics to  the  politician  is  bread  and  butter,  and  we  are  all  so  busy 
in  winning  our  own  that  we  do  not  take  the  time  to  watch  and 
thwart  his  intrigues.  The  only  remedy  thus  far  resorted  to — 
and  that  has  always  been  temporary — is  a  great  uprising  against 
corruption  and  wrong.  We  have  seen  something  of  it  in  the 
popular  protest  against  -  the  thieves  of  the  New  York  Ring. 
What  we  need  more  than  anything  else,  perhaps,  is  a  thor- 
oughly virtuous  and  independent  press.  We  believe  it  impos- 
sible to  work  effectually  except  through  party  organizations, 
but  such  should  be  the  intelligence,  virtue,  and  vigilance  of  the 
press  and  the  people  that  party  leaders  shall  be  careful  to  exe- 
cute the  party  will.  We  need  nothing  to  make  our  govern- 
ment the  best  of  all  governments  except  to  take  it  out  of  the 
hands  of  self-seeking  and  office-seeking  politicians,  and  to 
place  in  power  those  whom  the  people  regard  as  their  best 
men.  Until  this  can  be  done,  place  will  bring  personal  honor 
to  no  man,  and  our  republicanism  will  be  as  contemptible 
among  the  nations  as  it  is  unworthy  in  itself. 


356  E VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

OUR  PRESIDENT. 

In  the  good  time  coming — the  golden  age — the  blessed 
thousand  years — which  all  Christian  people  pray  for  and  ex- 
pect, we  are  to  have,  among  the  multitude  of  excellent  things, 
our  particular  President.  When  will  it  be  ?  And  what  will  be 
his  name?  The  time  when  can  hardly  be  foretold;  and  it 
matters  very  little  by  what  name  we  may  call  him;  but  we  can 
tell  even  now  what  sort  of  a  person  he  will  be,  and  it  is  a  com- 
fort to  think  of  the  dignities  and  gracious  amenities  that  will 
accompany  his  manly  sway. 

In  the  first  place,  he  will  be  a  gentleman,  and  will  have  the 
manners  of  a  gentleman.  No  vulgar  peculiarities  will  com- 
mend him  to  vulgar  people.  He  will  humiliate  himself  by  no 
appeals  to  low  taste  for  securing  the  popular  approval  and  sup- 
port. The  dirty  brood  of  office-seekers  and  contractors  and 
jobbing  mercenaries  will  stand  abashed  in  his  pure  presence. 
Nay,  he  will  be  hedged  about  by  a  dignity  that  will  protect 
him  from  the  approach  of  those  upon  whom  he  can  only  look 
with  loathing  and  contempt.  Petty  politicians  will  find  in  him 
no  congenial  society,  and  his  councils  will  be  those  of  states- 
manship. The  representatives  of  foreign  governments  will 
come  with  all  the  high  and  gentle  courtesies  of  which  they  may 
be  masters,  to  pay  him  court,  as  the  first  gentlemen  in  a  nation 
of  many  millions.  The  people  who  have  placed  him  in  power 
will  look  up  to  him  with  affectionate  pride  as  their  model  man; 
and  as  the  highest  product  of  American  civilization. 

Again,  he  will  be  a  wise  man,  and  wise  particularly  in  state- 
craft, through  a  life  of  conscientious  study  and  careful  and  fa- 
miliar practice  in  positions  that  have  naturally  led  to  his  final 
elevation.  He  will  live  in  an  age  when  the  present  low  ideas 
of  availability  will  have  passed  away,  and  when  personal  fitness 
will  be  the  essential  qualification  for  place.  He  will  have  been 


POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  MEN.  357 

brought  into  competition  with  none  but  those  of  his  own  kind. 
No  warrior  burdened  with  laurels  for  great  achievements  in  his 
awful  profession,  no  literary  chieftain  though  crowned  King  in 
his  own  peculiar  realm,  no  demagogue  fingering  the  strings  of 
a  thousand  intrigues,  no  boor  dazzling  the  populace  with  the 
shows  of  wealth  and  polluting  the  ballot-box  with  its  gifts,  will 
have  degraded  the  contest  which  resulted  in  his  election.  He 
will  have  reached  his  seat  because  a  wise  nation  believed  him 
to  be  its  wisest  man. 

He  will  be  a  man  of  honor  too,  a  man  who  will  sooner  die 
than  permit  any  good  reason  to  exist  for  the  suspicion  that  he 
will  use  the  privileges  of  his  place  for  the  perpetuation  of  his 
power.  He  will  be  a  "one  term  "  man,  who  will  never  for  an 
instant  permit  his  personal  prospects  to  influence  him  in  the 
performance  of  public  duty;  and  when  that  term  shall  expire, 
he  will  retire  to  a  still  higher  elevation  in  the  popular  esteem 
and  reverence,  and  will  not  sink  into  the  humble  and  almost 
disgraceful  obscurity  to  which  so  many  of  his  unworthy  prede- 
cessors have  been  condemned.  He  will  represent  in  his  faith 
and  practice  the  religion  on  which  his  country's  purity  and 
prosperity  rest;  for  in  that  grand  day  the  cavils  and  questions 
and  infidelities  that  disgrace  our  shallow  age  will  have  passed 
away,  and  the  brain  and  heart  of  Christendom  will  be  christian- 
ized. There  will  be  reverence  for  worth  in  the  popular  heart, 
and  a  Christian  nation  will  have  none  but  a  Christian  ruler. 

After  St.  Paul  returned  from  his  vision  of  those  heavenly 
things  which  it  was  not  lawful  for  him  to  speak  about,  the 
small  affairs  of  the  men  around  him,  and  the  mean  and  vulgar 
ways  of  those  with  whom  he  associated  and  to  whom  he 
preached,  must  have  been  somewhat  disgusting.  So,  after 
looking  at  the  ideal  president  in  "the  good  time  coming,"  we 
confess  to  a  spasm  of  pain  as  we  contemplate  the  political 


3  5  8  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

conflict  that  begins  the  moment  a  President  is  elected,  with  re- 
lation to  his  successor.  Is  it  to  be  a  conflict  of  great  princi- 
ples of  government,  earnestly  held  by  men  equally  wise  ?  Is 
it  to  be  a  conflict  between  men  equally  pure  and  equally  patri- 
otic ?  Is  it  to  be  a  conflict  between  statesmen  who  are  brought 
forward  because  of  wisdom  acquired  by  long  service  of  the 
State  in  other  capacities?  Is  it  to  be  a  conflict  between  gen- 
tlemen mutually  respecting  one  another?  Is  it  to  be  a  conflict 
in  which  the  dominant  desire  shall  be  that  the  best  man,  the 
most  honorable  man,  the  truest  Christian,  the  wisest  man,  the 
purest  and  highest  statesman,  may  win?  Or,  are  considera- 
tions of  personal  and  party  advantage  to  be  dominant?  Is 
slander  to  be  let  loose?  Is  dirt  to  be  thrown?  Are  the  pro- 
prieties of  society  to  be  so  outraged  by  personalities,  that  all  de- 
cent men  will  learn  to  shun  politics  as  they  would  shun  expos- 
ure to  a  foul  disease  ?  There  certainly  is  a  better  way  than 
the  one  we  walk  in,  and  there  are  some  at  least  who  would  be 
glad  to  find  it.  Let  us  try  to  find  it. 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 

THE  OLD  TYPES. 

The  country-bred  men  and  women  who  have  reached  the 
age  of  fifty  years  are  all  able  to  recall  a  picture — lying  now- 
far  back  in  the  mellow  atmosphere  of  the  past — of  a  band  of 
children,  standing  hand-in-hand  by  the  side  of  the  dusty  high- 
way, and  greeting  with  smile  and  bow  and  "courtesy"  every 
adult  passenger  whom  they  met  on  their  walks  to  and  from 
school.  They  were  instructed  in  this  polite  obeisance  by  their 
teachers.  It  was  a  part  of  the  old  New  England  drill,  which, 
so  far  as  we  know,  has  been  entirely  discontinued.  We  do  not 
remember  to  have  seen  such  a  sight  as  this  for  twenty-five 
years.  It  would  be  such  an  old-fashioned  affair  to  witness 
now,  that  multitudes  would  only  reward  it  with  a  smile  of 
amusement;  yet  with  all  our  boasted  progress  can  we  show 
anything  that  is  better  or  more  suggestive  of  downright, 
healthy  good-breeding  ?  Are  the  typical  boy  and  girl  of  the 
period  better  mannered,  more  reverent,  more  respectful  toward 
manhood  and  womanhood,  more  deferential  to  age  ?  Do  they 
grow  up  with  more  regard  for  morality,  religion,  law,  than  they 
did  then  ?  Alas !  with  all  our  books,  and  our  new  processes 
of  education,  and  the  universal  sharpness  of  the  juvenile  intel- 
lect of  the  day,  we  miss  something  that  was  very  precious  among 
the  children  of  the  old  time — reverence  for  men  and  women, 


3<5° 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


systematic  courtesy  in  simple  forms,  and  respect  for  the  wisdom 
of  the  pulpit,  the  school-room  and  the  fireside.  If  we  were 
called  upon  to  describe  the  model  boy  or  girl,  we  should  be 
obliged  to  call  up  the  old  type — the  rude,  healthy  lads  and 
lasses  who  snow-balled  each  other,  battled  with  each  other  in 
spelling-bouts,  and  imbibed  the  spirit  of  reverence  for  their 
elders  with  every  influence  of  church  and  school  and  home. 
We  have  made  progress  in  some  directions,  but  in  some  we 
•have  sadly  retrograded.  Our  boys  are  all  young  men,  and  our 
girls  are  fearfully  old.  Our  typical  child  has  no  longer  the 
spirit  of  a  child. 

Occasionally,  we  meet  what  are  popularly  denominated 
"gentlemen  of  the  old  school."  We  have  only  enough  of 
them  among  us  to  make  us  wish  that  we  had  many  more, — men 
of  courtly  dignity,  of  unobtrusive  dress,  of  manners  that  seem  a 
little  formal  but  which  are,  nevertheless,  the  manners  of  gen- 
tlemen. They  remind  us  of  the  worthies  of  the  old  colonial 
time,  and  of  the  later  time  of  the  Revolution — of  Washington 
and  Madison  and  Franklin — of  men  whom  all  revered,  and  to 
whom  all  gave  obeisance.  Into  what  has  this  style  of  men 
grown,  or  into  what  have  they  been  degraded  ?  Looking 
where  they  would  be  pretty  certain  to  congregate  if  they  were 
in  existence,  we  see  them  not.  Has  any  one  seen  them  at 
Newport  during  the  past  season?  Have  they  abounded  at 
Saratoga  ?  Have  they  been  found  in  dignified  and  graceful 
association  with  the  President  of  the  United  States  at  Long 
Branch  ?  Are  they  presiding  over  municipal  affairs  in  our 
great  cities  ?  Do  they  enter  largely  into  the  composition  of 
Congress,  even  after  we  have  subtracted  the  gamblers  and  car- 
pet-baggers ?  If  we  have  them  in  considerable  numbers, 
where  are  they  ?  Certainly  they  have  either  ceased  to  be  re- 
produced in  our  generation,  or  they  are  so  much  disgusted 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  361 

with  the  type  of  men  met  in  public  life  and  fashionable  society 
that  they  studiously  hide  themselves  from  sight.  There  is  littl-- 
comfort  in  either  alternative,  but  we  must  accept  one  or  the 
other. 

Progress  has  doubtless  been  made  in  many  things.  We  are 
richer,  better  clothed,  better  housed,  better  fed  and  better  edu- 
cated than  we  used  to  be.  Our  railroads  run  everywhere  ;  our 
well-nigh  exhaustless  resources  have  been  broached  in  a  thou- 
sand directions ;  we  count  the  increase  of  our  population  by 
millions ;  the  emigrations  of  the  world  all  move  toward  us ;  col- 
leges, churches  and  school-houses  have  gone  up  with  the  build- 
ing of  the  States,  and  the  States  themselves  have  multiplied  so 
rapidly  that  not  one  American  in  ten  knows  exactly  how  many 
are  in  the  Union.  All  this  is  true ;  but  during  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  we  judge  that  we  have  made  no  improvement  in  the 
typical  American  gentleman.  The  old  type  of  merchants — the 
old  type  of  statesmen — the  old  type  of  gentlemen — surely  we 
have  not  improved  upon  these.  The  restless,  greedy,  grasping, 
time-serving  spirit  of  our  generation  has  vitiated  and  degraded 
this  type,  and  in  our  efforts  at  improvement  we  may  well  go 
back  to  the  past  for  our  models. 

What  shall  we  say  about  the  old  type  of  women  as  compared 
with  the  present  representatives  of  the  best  of  the  sex  ?  The 
saintly,  heroic,  frugal,  industrious  wives  and  mothers  of  the 
earlier  days  of  the  Republic — have  we  improved  upon  them  ? 
Have  the  latter-day  doctrines  of  woman's  rights  made  them 
more  modest,  more  self-denying,  more  virtuous,  better  wives 
and  mothers,  purer  and  more  active  Christians,  better  heads  of 
the  institution  of  home,  more  lovely  companions  for  men  ? 
WTe  are  aware  that  the  answer  to  those  questions  involves  the 
approval  or  the  condemnation  of  the  doctrines  themselves,  and 
it  is  well  that  the  men  and  women  of  America  be  called  upon 


362  EVERY  DAY  TOPICS. 

to  see  and  decide  upon  those  doctrines  from  this  point  of  view. 
Is  the  type  of  American  woman  improved  ?  Has  it  been  im- 
proved in  the  last  twenty  years,  especially  inside  the  circles 
that  have  taken  the  improvement  of  the  position  of  woman 
upon  their  hands?  America  is  full  of  good  women.  As  a 
rule  they  are  undoubtedly  better  than  the  men,  but  certainly 
the  men  whose  instincts  are  true  are  attracted  most  to  those 
women  who  approach  nearest  to  the  ancient  type. 

The  final  result  of  our  civilization  is  to  be  reckoned  in  char- 
acter. If  this  is  not  satisfactory,  nothing  is  satisfactory.  If 
we  are  not  rearing  better  children  and  ripening  better  men  and 
women  than  we  were  a  century  ago,  then  something  is  radi- 
cally wrong,  and  the  quicker  we  retrace  our  steps  to  see  where 
we  have  diverged  from  the  right  track  the  better.  The  typical 
American — man,  woman  and  child — is  the  representative  prod- 
uct of  all  the  institutions  and  influences  of  our  civilization. 
As  the  type  improves  or  degenerates,  do  these  institutions  and 
influences  stand  approved  or  condemned  before  the  world. 
Progress  cannot  be  reckoned  in  railroads  and  steamboats,  or 
counted  in  money,  or  decided  in  any  way  by  the  census  tables. 
Are  we  producing  better  children  and  better  men  and  women  ? 
That  is  the  question  which  decides  everything;  and  we  have 
called  attention  to  the  old  types  in  order  that  we  may  arrive  at 
an  intelligent  conclusion. 

THE  SINS  OF  AMERICAN  GOOD-NATURE. 

An  intelligent  foreigner,  traveling  in  America,  was  asked 
what  he  regarded  as  the  most  prominent  characteristic  of  the 
people  of  the  country.  He  replied :  "  The  Americans  are  the 
best-natured  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth."  His  judgment 
was  entirely  just.  There  is  no  other  people,  of  anything  like 
equal  intelligence,  that  so  absolutely  refuses  to  be  irritated  by 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  363 

the  impositions  and  annoyances  of  life.  If  an  American  is 
cheated  in  a  shop,  he  simply  refrains  from  entering  the  shop 
again.  Instead  of  returning  and  demanding  his  rights,  he 
pockets  his  bad  bargain,  because  he  does  not  like  a  quarrel, 
and  cannot  afford  to  take  the  trouble  of  it.  After  paying  for  a 
seat  in  a  horse-car,  the  American  holds  himself  ready  to  yield 
his  right  to  any  lady  who  enters,  and  to  continue  yielding  his 
right  until  he  is  packed,  standing  like  a  bullock  in  a  cattle-train, 
with  fifty  others,  one-half  of  whom,  in  England  or  France, 
never  would  have  been  permitted  to  step  foot  upon  the  plat- 
form. The  American  consents  that  there  shall  be  no  such 
word  as  " complet"  attached  to  any  public  conveyance.  If  a 
railway  conductor,  or  a  hotel  clerk,  or  a  shopkeeper's  clerk,  or 
any  other  person  whose  business  it  is  to  be  courteous  to  the 
public,  puts  on  airs  and  snubs  the  American  customer,  it  is  the 
ordinary  habit  of  that  customer  to  "  stand  it "  rather  than  pro- 
test and  insist  on  the  treatment  which  he  ought  to  receive. 
Rogues  get  into  office,  and,  with  big  hands  in  the  public  purse, 
help  themselves  to  its  contents,  and  continue  to  do  this  year 
after  year,  the  owners  of  the  purse  all  the  time  knowing  the 
fact,  yet  being  too  easy  and  good-natured  to  make  even  an 
outcry.  Everybody  is  busy,  and  so  the  evils  that  would  stir 
the  blood  of  an  Englishman  to  boiling,  and  arouse  all  his 
combativeness,  are  quietly  ignored  or  carefully  shunned. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  thing  to  say,  or  to  reflect  upon,  but  the 
plain  truth  is  that  there  is  something  cowaidly  and  unmanly 
in  all  this.  We  have  no  special  admiration  of  the  touchiness 
of  an  Englishman  regarding  the  sacred  rights  of  his  person 
ality.  The  hedgehog  is  not  an  agreeable  bird,  and  we  have 
no  wish  to  see  it  substituted  for  the  American  eagle;  but 
a  bundle  of  quills  is  better  calculated  to  command  respect 
than  a  ball  of  putty.  The  man  who  stands  stiffly  in  his  tracks 


364 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


and  says,  "  Touch  me  not ! "  presents  a  very  much  more 
respectable  appearance  than  the  man  who  dodges  him  and 
every  other  obstacle  which  he  encounters  in  his  way.  We  are 
all  very  much  afraid  of  hurting  the  feelings  of  somebody, 
when  we  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that  somebody's  feelings 
ought  to  be  hurt,  and  that  nothing  would  do  somebody  so  much 
good  as  to  have  his  feelings  hurt.  We  forget  that  there  are 
things  of  infinitely  greater  importance  than  bad  people's  feel- 
ings— things  to  which  we  owe  infinitely  higher  duty.  A  man 
has  no  moral  right  to  permit  himself  to  be  robbed  or  cheated. 
If  he  tamely  submits  to  such  a  crime  he  becomes  accessory  to 
it,  and  encourages  the  rascal  at  whose  hand  he  has  suffered  to 
make  a  victim  of  the  next  unsuspecting  customer. 

The  characteristic  American  good-nature  not  only  encour- 
ages and  confers  impunity  upon  all  sorts  of  wrong,  but  it 
seriously  reacts  upon  American  character.  It  begets  a  tolera- 
tion of  every  kind  of  moral  evil  that  brings  at  last  insensibility 
to  it.  There  cannot  be  a  very  wide  moral  difference  between 
the  man  who  commits  crime  and  the  man  who  weakly  tol- 
erates it.  The  active  sinner  is,  if  anything,  the  braver  and  the 
nobler  of  the  two.  He  at  least  manifests  a  courage  which  the 
other  does  not.  There  is  nothing  that  America  needs  more 
than  the  bold  and  persistent  assertion,  in  every  practical  way, 
of  its  sense  of  what  is  fair  and  honest,  and  right  and  proper 
and  courteous,  between  man  and  man.  If  every  good  man 
would  stand  squarely  by  this,  even  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  rep- 
utation for  good-nature,  he  would  find  himself  growing  better 
day  by  day ;  he  would  find  that  the  good  elements  of  society 
were  rapidly  gaining  influence,  and  that  rogues  were  growing 
careful  and  getting  scarce. 

Corporations  like  those  which  manage  our  railroads  will 
impose  upon  the  public  just  as  long  as  the  popular  good- 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  365 

nature  will  permit  them  to  do  so.  Their  primary  object  is  to 
make  money.  They  will  furnish  to  the  public  just  such  ac- 
commodations as  the  public  will  be  content  with,  and  those 
accommodations  will  be  insufficient  and  mean  unless  the  public 
demand  more  and  better. 

There  are  more  evils  than  we  can  count  that  grow  directly 
or  indirectly  out  of  our  national  good-nature.  Our  hearts 
need  hardening,  and  our  backs  need  stiffening.  We  ought  to 
possess  more  manliness,  and  we  ought  to  exercise  it.  To 
insist  upon  our  rights  in  a  manly  and  temperate  way,  is  to 
give  a  lesson  in  Christian  civilization.  It  makes  us  stronger 
and  more  self-respectful,  and  restrains  the  spirit  of  lawlessness 
around  us.  One  prominent  reason  why  crime  thrives  and  the 
public  morals  go  from  bad  to  worse,  is  that  they  meet  with  no 
rebuke.  The  good  people  bemoan  the  facts  in  a  weak  way 
among  themselves,  but  they  refuse  to  meet  the  evils  they 
bewail,  front  to  front,  with  open  challenge  and  bold  conflict. 
Crime  is  a  coward  in  the  presence  of  courageous  virtue,  and 
shrinks  and  crawls  whenever  it  boldly  asserts  itself.  Now, 
virtue  shrinks  and  crawls,  while  crime  struts  the  streets  and 
deals  out  such  privileges  to  retiring  decency  and  cowardly 
good-nature  as  it  can  afford.  It  even  imitates  our  good- 
nature, and  smiles  upon  us  from  the  high  places  of  its  power 
and  privilege,  and  laughs  over  its  profits — and  its  joke. 

^ESTHETICS  AT  A  PREMIUM. 

Our  good  Americans  who  flock  to  Europe  every  year 
usually  return  prepared  to  talk  about  the  absorption  of  the 
new  world  in  practical  affairs,  and  the  lack  of  the  aesthetic 
element  in  American  life.  It  is  not  to  be  expected,  they  say, 
in  a  tone  which  carries  any  amount  of  patronage  and  pardon 
with  it,  that  a  people  who  have  forests  to  fell,  and  railroads  to 


3  6  6  £  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

build,  and  prairies  to  plant,  and  cities  to  rear,  and  mines  to 
uncover,  and  a  great  experiment  to  make  in  democratic  gov- 
ernment, should  have  time  to  devote  to  matters  of  taste. 
These  latter  things  come  with  accumulated  wealth  and  centu- 
ries of  culture.  We  are  necessarily  m  the  raw  now.  The 
material  overlies  the  spiritual.  The  whole  nation,  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  greed  for  wealth  and  the  wide  facilities  for  pro- 
curing it,  is  base.  The  almighty  dollar  is  the  national  god; 
but  it  is  confidently  expected  and  predicted  that  we  shall  do 
better  by-and-by.  Let  us  see  if  there  are  not  a  few  evidences 
that  the  better  day  is  dawning. 

New  York  has  her  Central  Park,  in  which  may  be  seen 
more  genuine  art  and  taste  than  have  been  devoted  to  any 
other  park  in  the  world.  The  Champs  Elysees  of  Paris,  the 
Thiergarten  of  Berlin,  and  Hyde  Park  in  London,  are  all 
inferior  to  the  Central  Park  in  every  respect.  Now,  to  show 
how  the  element  of  taste  in  our  life  is  surpassing  the  element 
of  use — how  the  spiritual  predominates  over  the  material  and 
practical — we  have  only  to  refer  to  our  docks.  It  must  be  a 
matter  of  the  serenest  satisfaction  and  the  most  complacent 
pride  that  we,  who  have  the  reputation  of  being  a  city  of 
money-getters  and  worshipers  of  the  useful  and  the  material, 
can  point  to  our  docks  as  the  dirtiest,  the  most  insufficient, 
and  the  least  substantial  of  any  possessed  by  any  first-class 
city  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  To  the  strangers  who  visit  us 
from  abroad  we  can  proudly  say :  You  have  accused  us  of  su- 
preme devotion  to  the  material  grandeur  of  our  city  and  our 
land.  Look  at  our  rotten  and  reeking  docks,  and  see  how  lit- 
tle we  care  for  even  the  decencies  of  commercial  equipment, 
and  then,  if  you  can  get  safely  on  shore,  come  up  to  our  Cen- 
tral Park,  and  forget  all  the  coarser  elements  of  life  in  the  ap- 
pointments and  atmosphere  of  taste  which  will  there  surround 
you! 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  367 

Have  we  not  just  founded  a  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  ? 
Have  we  not  established  the  nucleus  of  a  collection  which  is 
to  go  on  gathering  to  itself  the  contributions  of  the  world  and 
the  ages  ?  Are  not  our  capitalists  hoarding  money  for  it  ?  Do 
not  our  merchant  princes  go  on  piling  up  their  millions 
with  the  proud  design  of  remembering  it  in  their  wills  ?  Nay, 
is  not  America  the  great  art  market  of  the  world  ?  Do  we  not 
run  Rome  as  we  would  run  a  mill  ?  Have  we  not  transformed 
Ahmich,  with  her  thousand  artists,  into  a  manufactory? 
Is  not  all  Paris  under  tribute  to  us  ?  Is  it  not  our  gold  that 
makes  yellower  than  sunshine  the  air  in  the  studios  of  Flor- 
ence ?  Yet  we  are  accused  of  supreme  devotion  to  the  mate- 
rial, and  this,  too,  in  face  of  the  fact  that  our  city  markets 
would  be  accounted  a  disgrace  to  any  city  in  Christendom ! 
We  do  not  even  undertake  to  have  markets  that  are  decently 
clean.  The  costliest  viands  that  crown  our  feasts  come  from 
realms  foul  with  impure  odors,  and  from  stalls  past  which  a 
clean  skirt  never  sweeps  without  disaster.  To  the  caitiff  who 
should  accuse  us  of  a  gross  and  sensual  life,  and  of  devotion 
to  the  matters  of  eating  and  drinking,  we  would  say :  look  at 
Fulton  Market, — the  meanest  shed  that  ever  covered  a  city's 
food — and  then,  when  you  have  seen  how  little  we  care  for 
even  the  appearance  of  cleanliness,  go  with  us  to  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  of  Art,  to  a  hundred  private  galleries  on  Fifth 
and  Madison  Avenues,  and  to  the  walls  of  drawing-rooms  that 
are  covered  with  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  pictures,  and  ac- 
knowledge that  the  aesthetic  holds  us  in  absolute  thrall,  while 
we  take  no  care  for  what  we  eat  and  what  we  drink ! 

New  York  a  city  devoted  to  the  material!  Why,  it  has  not 
a  single  well-kept  street!  There  is  not  one  street  in  the  whole 
city  that  is  as  clean  any  day  as  every  principal  street  of  Paris 
is  every  day.  There  are  scores  of  streets  that  are  piled  with 


368  EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 

garbage  from  one  end  to  the  other.  There  are  scores  of  streets 
so  rough  with  worn-out  pavements  that  no  ordinary  carriage 
can  be  driven  through  them  at  a  rapid  rate  without  the  danger 
of  breaking  it.  There  are  streets  by  the  hundred  that  hold 
people  so  thoughtless  of  even  the  common  decencies  of  life, 
that  they  keep  their  ash-barrels  constantly  upon  their  sidewalks, 
where  they  stand  in  long  rows, — lines  of  eloquent  monuments 
— testifying  to  the  absorption  of  our  citizens  in  purely  aesthetic 
pursuits.  When  we  pass  from  such  streets  as  these  into  houses 
holding  the  best-dressed  men  and  women  in  the  world,  sur- 
rounded by  every  appointment  of  tasteful  luxury, — men  and 
women  whose  feet  press  nothing  but  velvet,  and  whose  eyes 
see  nothing  but  forms  of  beauty  (except  when  they  happen  to 
look  out  of  the  window),  we  may  well  point  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  those  who  taunt  us  with  being  devoted  to  the  gratification 
of  our  senses.  New  York  devoted  to  the  senses !  Why,  it  is 
not  even  courteous  to  the  senses :  it  does  not  so  much  as  hold 
its  nose ! 

We  might  proceed  with  the  illustrations  of  our  point,  but 
they  would  be  interminable.  We  might  show  how  we  have  so 
left  out  of  consideration  the  matter  of  utility  in  the  erection  of 
beautiful  churches  that  we  have  spent  all  our  available  money 
without  giving  half  our  people  sittings,  and  in  doing  so  have 
made  the  sittings  so  expensive  that  not  half  of  them  are  occu- 
pied. There  is  money  enough  invested  in  churches  in  New 
York  to  give  every  man  and  woman  a  sitting,  and  support  the 
ministers,  without  costing  a  poor  man  a  cent.  Can  this  justly 
be  called  supreme  devotion  to  practical  affairs  ?  Our  love  of 
fine  architecture  has  even  led  us  to  forget  our  religion ;  and  yet 
we  are  accused  of  having  no  love  of  art!  Let  us  comfort  our- 
selves with  the  consciousness  that  we  have  arrived  at  that  pitch  of 
civilization  which  enables  us  to  hold  an  even  head  with  Rome, 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  369 

whose  atmosphere  of  art  is  malaria,  or  with  old  Cologne,  whose 
exquisite  cathedral  bathes  its  feet  in  gutters  that  reek  with  the 
vapors  of  disease,  and  the  nastinesses  of  a  people  absorbed  in 
making  Cologne  water,  and  in  the  worship  of  eleven  thousand 
virgins,  none  of  whom  are  living. 

THE  CONSERVATIVE  RESOURCES  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

We  are  witnessing,  in  these  passing  days,  new  demonstra- 
tions of  the  Conservative  influences  and  resources  of  American 
life.  Reflecting  persons  are  sometimes  scared  by  the  liberty 
and  latitude  which  our  institutions  confer  upon  every  kind  and 
class  of  men,  and  are  filled  with  the  gravest  apprehensions 
while  contemplating  the  tendencies  of  society  to  corruption 
and  extravagance,  or  other  forms  of  vice  and  folly.  With  a 
press  whose  liberty  is  absolutely  unbridled;  with  the  privilege 
of  universal  self-direction  and  self-service  unwatched  and  un- 
touched by  the  police;  with  a  freedom  of  speech  and  move- 
ment that  more  frequently  forgets  than  remembers  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  law,  and  with  an  underlying  conviction  and 
consciousness  that  human  nature  is  selfish,  and  that  great 
masses  of  society  are  almost  hopelessly  degraded,  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  there  are  thinking  men  who  look  despondingly 
into  the  future,  and  who  load  their  lips  with  prophecies  of  evil. 

A  gentleman  who  had  been  at  both  the  sieges  of  Paris,  and 
who  had  spent  much  time  in  Europe,  was  present  during  the  - 
late  Orange  riot  in  New  York,  and  witnessed  its  suppression. 
He  was  filled  with  wonder  at  the  ease  with  which  it  was  han- 
dled, the  lack  of  all  apprehension  of  a  dangerous  outbreak  on 
the  part  of  the  people  of  the  city,  and  with  the  fact  that 
everybody  went  to  bed  on  the  night  of  the  riot  and  slept 
soundly,  in  the  confident  expectation  of  finding  the  city  in 
perfect  peace  the  next  morning.  Such  an  event  in  any  cap- 
24 


370  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

ital  of  Europe  would  have  aroused  the  intensest  suspicions  on 
the  part  of  the  government,  and  led  to  the  most  jealous  and 
efficient  precautions,  while  the  people,  greedy  for  change  and 
ready  for  anything  that  would  give  them  liberty,  if  only  for  a 
day,  would  have  been  roused  into  a  fury  of  sleepless  excitement. 
In  Paris,  it  would  have  been  the  signal  for  a  revolution.  In 
New  York,  opposed  by  a  militia  called  out  from  among  the 
people  themselves,  it  never  had  the  chance  to  do  any  damage 
except  to  the  misguided  men  who  were  engaged  in  it. 

Not  long  ago  New  York  City  was  in  the  hands  of  a  gang  of 
such  gigantic  thieves  as  the  world  has  rarely  produced,  in  all  its 
centuries  of  fruitful  wickedness.  There  was  no  ingenuity  of 
corrupt  expedient  that  had  been  left  untried,  in  the  achievement 
and  retention  of  power.  There  was  no  scheme  of  plunder  too 
bold  and  shameless  for  them  to  undertake.  They  had  suborned 
judges,  and  bribed  legislators,  and  tampered  with  administra- 
tion. Their  tools  and  servants  were  in  offices  of  trust.  Their 
paid  bullies  were  a  terror  at  every  polling-place.  Surrounded 
by  every  appointment  and  feasted  by  every  ministry  of  luxury, 
they  defied  public  sentiment  and  public  punishment,  and  laid 
their  plans  for  the  future  with  the  confidence  of  integrity,  and 
half  deceived  themselves  with  the  thought  that  they  were  gentle- 
men. But  the  press,  in  its  fearless  liberty,  laid  hold  of  them, 
dragged  them  forth  from  their  strongholds  of  crime  and  shame, 
and  exposed  them  to  the  execration  of  the  men  they  had 
wronged  and  robbed.  The  sceptre  dropped  from  their  hands, 
and,  in  a  few  brief  months,  the  whole  infamous  gang  became 
fugitives  from  justice. 

No  scheme  of  iniquity  can  stand  under  the  exposure  of  a 
faithful  press.  The  little  pencil  of  Nast  alone,  when  employed 
in  a  thoroughly  righteous  cause,  is  more  powerful  than  armies 
of  men  and  millions  of  money.  It  is  the  habit  of  some  good 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 


371 


men  to  bemoan  the  licentiousness  of  the  press,  and  its  undig- 
nified and  often  disgraceful  quarrels  and  personalities;  but,  with 
all  its  faults  it  is  the  very  bulwark  of  the  public  safety.  With- 
out the  press,  the  great  metropolis  would  be  to-day  in  the 
hands  of  the  Ring.  Indeed,  without  the  press — perfectly  un- 
trammeled — there  can  be  no  hope  of  the  perpetuation  of  the 
liberties  of  the  country.  That  power  which  kings  and  emper- 
ors fear,  and  seek  to  regulate  and  control,  is  the  power  which 
alone  can  preserve  the  republic.  Monarchs  recognize  its  voice 
as  the  voice  of  the  people,  and  the  republic  that  fails  to  do  the 
same  becomes  its  own  enemy. 

In  contemplating  society,  we  easily  detect  certain  tenden- 
cies that  seem  to  have  no  end  except  in  disaster  or  destruction. 
"  Whither  are  we  drifting  ?  "  is  the  questioning  cry.  There  is 
prevailing  and  increasing  infidelity  to  the  marital  vow ;  there 
is  growing  of  lavish  luxury ;  there  is  deepening  and  spreading 
corruption  in  high  places ;  there  is  augmentation  of  desire  to 
win  wealth  without  work ;  there  is  a  fiercer  burning  of  the 
fever  of  speculation ;  there  is  a  lengthening  reach  and  strength- 
ening grasp  upon  power  on  the  part  of  great  corporations, 
whose  effect  is  to  limit  the  liberty  and  diminish  the  prosperity 
of  the  people.  We  mark  these  tendencies  to  enormous  and 
disastrous  evil,  and  it  seems  as  if  nothing  could  avert  its  near 
or  distant  coming;  but,  at  last,  the  people  turn  their  eyes 
upon  the  disease  that  threatens  greatest  danger,  the  press  in 
tones  of  thunder  speaks  the  voice  of  the  popular  conviction 
and  reprehension,  and  all  in  good  time  the  wrong  is  righted, 
the  drift  toward  destruction  is  arrested,  and  the  agents  of 
mischief  are  reformed  or  rendered  powerless.  This  is  the 
lesson  of  the  last  ten  years  of  American  life,  and  it  is  full  of 
hope  and  promise.  We  are  not  likely  to  encounter  anything 
more  terrible  in  the  future  than  those  evils — political  and 


372 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


social — which  this  conservative  power  has  arrested  in  their 
course,  or  expelled.  We  drift  toward  a  precipice,  but  when 
the  waters  quicken,  and  we  feel  ourselves  tossing  among  the 
rapids,  we  spring  to  the  oars,  and  with  free,  strong  arms  we 
row  back  to  broader  waters  and  sweeter  and  safer  shores.  We 
have  the  strongest  faith  in  the  conservative  power  of  our  free 
American  life,  and,  with  all  our  tendencies  to  evil,  we  firml) 
be.ieve  that  we  have  the  strongest  government  and  the  safest 
society  of  any  great  people  whose  life  helps  to  weave  the 
current  history  of  Christendom. 

LIVING  WITH  WINDOWS  OPEN. 

More  than  any  other  people  in  the  world,  Americans  live 
with  their  windows  open.  Less  than  any  people  who  have 
homes  do  they  regard  their  homes  as  sacredly  private.  Every 
family  knows  its  neighbor's  affairs;  and  nothing  transpires 
concerning  the  most  private  relations  that  is  not  immediately 
noised  abroad,  discussed,  and  judged  by  meddling  and  gos- 
siping communities.  Homes  that  should  be  guarded  with  the 
most  jealous  care  are  of  easy  access  to  strangers,  who  come 
with  the  flimsiest  credentials,  or  with  none  at  all ;  and  every 
year  produces  its  crop  of  personal  and  social  disasters  which 
this  unwise  exposure  of  the  soil  gives  to  reckless  or  villainous 
sowing.  If  a  man  should  wish  to  see  how  Americans  differ 
in  this  thing  from  other  nations,  let  him  try  to  get  into  a 
German  or  an  English  family,  or  even  into  a  French  family, 
abroad.  He  will  at  once  discover  that  he  has  undertaken  to 
do  a  very  difficult  thing.  No  man  can  obtain  an  inside  view 
of  the  economies  and  habits  of  a  foreign  home,  and  share  in 
its  communion,  who  does  not  enter  it  with  a  record  or  an  in- 
troduction and  indorsement  which  place  him  above  suspicion. 
Students  who  go  to  continental  Europe  to  study  language, 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 


373 


with  the  natural  expectation  to  accomplish  their  purpose  by 
entering  a  French  or  a  German  family,  find,  to  their  suq^rise, 
that  nothing  but  necessity  will  induce  any  family  to  open  its 
sanctities  to  them.  t 

It  will  naturally  be  said  that  old  or  mature  communities  are 
conservative  in  this,  as  in  other  matters;  but  we  do  not  see 
that,  as  America  grows  older,  it  mends  in  this  respect.  Indeed, 
it  is  certainly  and  swiftly  growing  worse.  The  greed  for  per- 
sonalities— the  taste  for  everything  relating  to  the  life  of  indi- 
viduals— and  the  base  desire  to  be  talked  about,  were  never 
more  prevalent  than  now.  We  have  only  to  take  up  a  fash- 
ionable paper  to  learn  who  has  had  parties,  who  attended  the 
parties,  who  were  the  belles  of  the  parties,  and  how  they  were 
dressed ;  and  we  know  while  we  read  that  the  ladies  who 
gave  the  parties  gave  also  the  information  concerning  them, 
and  were  glad  to  see  the  reports  in  print.  Weddings,  which 
should  be  sacred  to  kindred  and  closest  friends,  are  turned 
into  public  shows;  and  trousseaus  are  inventoried  by  the 
daily  prints  and  spread  before  the  country.  It  is  not  enough 
that  one's  marriage  be  published  when  it  takes  place,  but  the 
engagement  must  be  bruited  in  Jenkins's  Journal,  Jenkins 
having  previously  been  assured  that  the  announcement  would 
not  be  offensive,  and  subsequently  repaid  by  an  order  for 
extra  papers.  The  inanities  of  the  Court  Journal,  over  which 
Americans  were  in  the  habit  of  laughing  a  dozen  years  ago, 
are  more  than  matched  by  the  daily  report  of  the  movements 
of  every  man  of  title,  or  place,  or  notoriety.  When  a  woman 
lectures,  the  reporters  understand  that  the  first  thing  people  wish 
to  learn  about  her  relates  to  her  face,  figure,  and  dress;  and 
that  is  the  first  thing  they  write  about.  The  women  of  the 
platform — being  all  very  sensible  women,  and  too  wise  to  be 
vain — are  of  course  offended  by  this  treatment ;  but  it  some- 


374 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


how  happens  that  the  reports  are  generally  of  a  flattering 
character. 

It  would  be  possible  to  get  along  with  all  this.  A  man  may 
become  used  to  smothering  his  sense  of  humiliation  and  disgust 
when  reading  the  public  record  of  private  life,  so  long  as  that 
record  is  made  with  the  consent,  or  at  the  wish,  of  those  to 
whom  it  relates;  but  it  happens  that  we  have  in  America  now 
a  prowling,  prying,  far-seeing,  vivacious,  loquacious,  voracious 
being  known  as  the  Local  Editor,  who  must  get  a  living,  and 
who  lives  only  upon  items.  If  a  man  sneeze  twice  in  his  pres- 
ence, the  local  column  of  the  morning  paper  will  contain  the 
anouncement  that  "our  esteemed  fellow-citizen"  is  suffering, 
from  a  severe  cold.  If  a  man  lose  his  hat  in  a  high  wind,  it 
excites  the  mirth  of  the  local  editor  to  the  extent  of  a  dozen 
lines.  He  amplifies  an  accident  that  kills,  or  a  scandal  that 
ruins,  with  marvelous  minuteness  of  detail.  His  eye  is  at  every 
man's  back  door,  to  see  and  report  who  and  what  go  and  come. 
There  is  nothing  safe  from  his  pen.  All  the  private  affairs  of  the 
community  for  which  he  writes  are  published  to  that  community 
every  day.  If  a  man  shoots  a  dog,  or  catches  a  string  of  trout, 
or  rides  out  for  his  health,  or  is  seen  mysteriously  leaving  town  on 
an  evening  train,  or  sells  a  horse,  or  buys  a  cow,  or  gives  a  din- 
ner-party, or  looks  sallow,  or  grows  fat,  or  smiles  upon  a  wid- 
ow, or  renews  the  wall-paper  of  his  house,  he  gives  the  local  ed- 
itor an  item.  The  local  editor  turns  the  houses  of  the  commu- 
nity inside  out  every  day,  and  keeps  the  windows  open  by 
which  the  secrets  and  sanctities  of  every  home  are  exposed 
to  public  view. 

The  local  editor  is,  we  regret  to  say,  not  without  excuse. 
Occasionally  some  indignant  victim  of  his  prying  and  publishing 
propensities  scourges  or  scolds  him;  but  it  must  be  confessed, 
with  sorrow  and  shame,  that  his  local  column  finds  a  greedy 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  375 

market.  Instead  of  frowning  upon  the  liberty  he  takes  with 
persons  and  homes,  and  the  details  of  individual  private  life, 
the  multitude  read  his  column  first  of  all.  That  its  results  are 
mischievous  and  demoralizing  in  their  ministry  to  neighborhood 
gossip  and  scandal,  there  is  no  doubt.  Among  its  worst  results 
is  the  destruction  of  all  reverence  for  the  right  of  every  private 
man  to  live  privately,  and  of  every  home  to  live  with  its  win- 
dows closed.  There  is  unquestionably  a  desire  in  a  certain  sort 
of  private  life  to  get  into  the  papers — a  desire  to  spread  all  the 
details  of  its  doings  before  the  world.  This  life  may  be  "  high  " 
or  low,  fashionable  or  unfashionable,  but  it  is  irredeemably  vul- 
gar, and  can  only  disgust  every  self-respectful  and  dignified 
man  and  woman.  Let  us  protest  on  behalf  of  decency  against 
the  familiar  treatment  which  the  retiring  and  the  unwilling  re- 
ceive in  the  local  column,  and  in  the  more  ambitious  perform- 
ances of  the  omnipresent  Jenkins.  Let  us  at  least  have  the 
privilege  of  repeating  the  cry  of  Betsy  Trotwood,  when  her  lit- 
tle patch  of  green  was  invaded,  "Janet!  donkeys!" 

THE  CURE  FOR  GOSSIP. 

Everybody  must  talk  about  something.  The  poor  fellow 
who  was  told  not  to  talk  for  the  fear  that  people  would  find 
out  that  he  was  a  fool,  made  nothing  by  the  experiment.  He 
was  considered  a  fool  because  he  did  not  talk.  On  some  sub- 
ject or  another,  everybody  must  have  something  to  say,  or  give 
up  society.  Of  course,  the  topics  of  conversation  will  relate  to 
the  subjects  of  knowledge.  If  a  man  is  interested  in  science, 
he  will  talk  about  science.  If  he  is  an  enthusiast  in  art,  he  will 
talk  about  art.  If  he  is  familiar  with  literature,  and  is  an  intel- 
ligent and  persistent  reader,  he  will  naturally  put  forward  liter- 
ary topics  in  his  conversation.  So  with  social  questions,  polit- 
ical questions,  religious  questions.  Out  of  the  abundance  of 


376 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


the  heart  the  mouth  speaketh.  That  of  which  the  mind  is  full 
— that  with  which  it  is  furnished — will  come  out  in  expression. 

The  very  simple  reason  why  the  world  is  full  of  gossip,  is, 
that  those  who  indulge  in  it  have  nothing  else  in  them.  They 
must  interest  themselves  in  something.  They  know  nothing 
but  what  they  learn  from  day  to  day,  in  intercourse  with,  and 
observation  of,  their  neighbors.  What  these  neighbors  do, — 
what  they  say, — what  happens  to  them  in  their  social  and  busi- 
ness affairs, — what  they  wear, — these  become  the  questions  of 
supreme  interest.  The  personal  and  social  life  around  them — 
this  is  the  book  under  constant  perusal,  and  out  of  this  comes 
that  pestiferous  conversation  which  we  call  gossip.  The  world 
is  full  of  it;  and  in  a  million  houses,  all  over  this  country,  noth- 
ing is  talked  of  but  the  personal  affairs  of  neighbors.  All  per- 
sonal and  social  movements  and  concerns  are  arraigned  before 
this  high  court  of  gossip,  are  retailed  at  every  fireside,  are 
sweetened  with  approval  or  embittered  by  spite,  and  are  gath- 
ered up  as  the  common  stock  of  conversation  by  the  bank- 
rupt brains  that  have  nothing  to  busy  themselves  with  but  tit- 
tle-tattle. 

The  moral  aspects  of  gossip  are  bad  enough.  It  is  a  con- 
stant infraction  of  the  Golden  Rule;  it  is  full  of  all  uncharita- 
bleness.  No  man  or  woman  of  sensibility  likes  to  have  his  or 
her  personal  concerns  hawked  about  and  talked  about;  and 
those  who  engage  in  this  work  are  meddlers  and  busybodies 
who  are  not  only  doing  damage  to  others — are  not  only  engag- 
ed in  a  most  unneighborly  office — but  are  inflicting  a  great 
damage  upon  themselves.  They  sow  the  seeds  of  anger  and 
animosity  and  social  discord.  Not  one  good  moral  result  ever 
comes  out  of  -it.  It  is  a  thoroughly  immoral  practice,  and 
what  is  worst  and  most  hopeless  about  it  is,  that  those  who  are 
engaged  in  it  do  not  see  that  it  is  immoral  and  detestable.  To 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 


377 


go  into  a  man's  house,  stealthily,  when  he  is  away  from  home, 
and  overhaul  his  papers,  or  into  a  lady's  wardrobe  and  examine 
her  dresses,  would  be  deemed  a  very  dishonorable  thing;  but 
to  take  up  a  man's  or  a  woman's  name,  and  smirch  it  all  over 
with  gossip — to  handle  the  private  affairs  of  a  neighbor  around 
a  hundred  firesides — why  this  is  nothing!  It  makes  conversa- 
tion. It  furnishes  a  topic.  It  keeps  the  wheels  of  society  go- 
ing. 

Unhappily  for  public  morals,  the  greed  for  personal  gossip 
has  been  seized  upon  as  the  basis  of  a  thrifty  traffic.  There 
are  newspapers  that  spring  to  meet  every  popular  demand. 
We  have  agricultural  papers,  scientific  papers,  literary  papers, 
sporting  papers,  religious  papers,  political  papers,  and  papers 
devoted  to  every  special  interest,  great  and  small,  that  can  be 
named,  and,  among  them,  papers  devoted  to  personal  gossip. 
The  way  in  which  the  names  of  private  men  and  women  are 
handled  by  caterers  for  the  public  press — the  way  in  which  their 
movements  and  affairs  are  heralded  and  discussed — would  be 
supremely  disgusting  were  it  not  more  disgusting  that  these  pa- 
pers find  greedy  readers  enough  to  make  the  traffic  profitable. 
The  redeeming  thing  about  these  papers  is,  that  they  are  rarely 
malicious  except  when  they  are  very  low  down — that  they  sea- 
son their  doses  with  flattery.  They  find  their  reward  in  minis- 
tering to  personal  vanity. 

What  is  the  cure  for  gossip  ?  Simply,  culture.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  gossip  that  has  no  malignity  in  it.  Good-natured 
people  talk  about  their  neighbors  because,  and  only  because, 
they  have  nothing  else  to  talk  about.  As  we  write,  there 
comes  to  us  the  picture  of  a  family  of  young  ladies.  We  have 
seen  them  at  home,  we  have  met  them  in  galleries  of  art,  we 
have  caught  glimpses  of  them  going  from  a  bookstore,  or  a  li- 
brary, with  a  fresh  volume  in  their  hands  When  we  meet 


373 


£  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


them,  they  are  full  of  what  they  have  seen  and  read.  They 
are  brimming  with  questions.  One  topic  of  conversation  is 
dropped  only  to  give  place  to  another,  in  which  they  are  inter- 
ested. We  have  left  them,  after  a  delightful  hour,  stimulated 
and  refreshed;  and  during  the  whole  hour  not  a  neighbor's 
garment  was  soiled  by  so  much  as  a  touch.  They  had  some- 
thing to  talk  about.  They  knew  something,  and  wanted  to 
know  more.  They  could  listen  as  well  as  they  could  talk. 
To  speak  freely  of  a  neighbor's  doings  and  belongings  would 
have  seemed  an  impertinence  to  them,  and,  of  course,  an  im- 
propriety. They  had  no  temptation  to  gossip,  because  the  do- 
ings of  their  neighbors  formed  a  subject  very  much  less  inter- 
esting than  those  which  grew  out  of  their  knowledge  and  their 
culture. 

And  this  tells  the  whole  story.  The  confirmed  gossip  is 
always  either  malicious  or  ignorant.  The  one  variety  needs  a 
change  of  heart  and  the  other  a  change  of  pasture.  Gossip  is 
always  a  personal  confession  either  of  malice  or  imbecility,  and 
the  young  should  not  only  shun  it,  but  by  the  most  thorough 
culture  relieve  themselves  from  all  temptation  to  indulge  in  it. 
It  is  a  low,  frivolous,  and  too  often  a  dirty  business.  There 
are  country  neighborhoods  in  which  it  rages  like  a  pest. 
Churches  are  split  in  pieces  by  it.  Neighbors  are  made  ene- 
mies by  it  for  life.  In  many  persons  it  degenerates  into  a 
chronic  disease,  which  is  practically  incurable.  Let  the  young 
cure  it  while  they  may. 

AMERICAN  INCIVILITY. 

There  is,  undoubtedly,  something  in  the  political  equality 
established  by  American  institutions  which  interferes  with  the 
development  of  civility  among  those  who  occupy  what  are  de- 
nominated the  lower  walks  of  life.  It  is  hard  to  see  why  this 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  ^g 

should  be  so.  One  would  naturally  suppose  that  political 
equality  would  breed  reciprocal  respect  among  all  classes  and 
individuals,  no  less  than  self-respect.  Certainly  there  could 
hardly  be  a  better  basis  of  good  manners  than  self-respect  and 
respect  for  others;  yet,  with  everything  in  our  institutions  to 
develop  these,  together  with  a  respect  for  woman  which  is  en- 
tertained in  no  other  country  with  which  we  are  acquainted, 
it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  among  the  workers  of  the  nation 
politeness  is  little  known  and  less  practiced.  A  man  who  steps 
into  Washington  Market,  with  a  good  coat  on,  looking  for  his 
dinner,  will  receive  the  utmost  politeness  of  which  the  stall- 
keeper  is  capable,  and  this  will  consist  in  calling  him  "boss" — 
a  boorish  concession  to  civility  for  the  sake  of  trade.  The 
courteous  greeting,  the  "  Sir,"  and  the  "  Madam,"  the  civil  an- 
swer, the  thousand  indescribable  deferences  and  attentions, 
equally  without  servility  or  arrogance,  which  reveal  good  man- 
ners, are  wanting. 

It  all  comes,  we  suppose,  of  the  fear  of  those  who  find 
themselves  engaged  in  humble  employments,  that  they  shall 
virtually  concede  that  somebody  somewhere  is  better  than 
themselves.  It  is  singular  that  they  should  voluntarily  take  a 
course  that  proves  the  fact  that  they  are  so  unwilling  to  admit 
to  themselves  and  others.  The  man  who  undertakes  to  prove 
that  he  is  as  good  as  a  gentleman,  by  behaving  like  a  boor, 
volunteers  a  decision  against  himself;  while  he  who  treats  all 
men  politely  builds  for  himself  a  position  which  secures  the  re- 
spect of  all  whose  conduct  is  not  condemned  by  his  own. 
The  American  is  a  kinder  man  than  the  Frenchman,  and  bet- 
ter-natured  than  the  Englishman,  but  the  humble  American 
is  less  polite  than  either.  One  of  the  charms  of  Paris  to  the 
traveling  American  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  it  is  one  of  the 
first  places  he  visits,  and  that  then,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 


38o 


E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 


he  comes  into  contact  with  a  class  of  humble  people  who  have 
thoroughly  good  manners.  He  is  not  called  "  boss,"  or  "  hoss." 
He  is  himself  put  upon  his  good  behavior,  by  the  thoroughly 
courteous  treatment  he  receives  among  railway  officials,  shop- 
keepers, waiters  at  cafe  and  hotel,  cab-drivers,  etc.  The 
"bien!  Monsieur,"  and  "bien!  Madame,"  which  responds  to 
one's  requests  in  Paris,  is  certainly  very  sweet  and  satisfactory 
after:  "all  right,  boss;  you  can  bet  on't." 

Where  the  cure  for  our  National  trouble  is  coming  from, 
it  is  hard  to  tell.  There  was  a  time,  fifty  years  ago,  when 
there  was  a  degree  of  reverence  in  American  children,  and  at 
least  a  show  of  good  manners.  Great  respect  to  those  of 
superior  age  and  culture  was  then  inculcated,  and  at  least 
formal  courtesy  exacted.  Certainly  much  of  this  training  is 
done  with.  Even  the  men  and  women — fathers,  mothers,  and 
teachers  of  fifty  years  ago,  had  receded  from  the  courteous 
habits  of  previous  generations.  In  the  old  colonial,  and 
even  later  days,  great  respect  was  paid  to  dignities.  The 
clergymen  was  reverenced  because  he  was  a  clergyman,  and 
occupied  the  supreme  position  of  teacher  of  the  people.  He 
was  reverenced  not  only  because  of  his  holy  calling,  but  be- 
cause he  was  a  scholar.  All  this  has  gone  by.  The  clergy- 
man, if  he  is  a  good  fellow,  is  very  much  liked  and  petted,  but 
the  old  reverence  for  him,  and  universal  courtesy  toward  him, 
are  unknown. 

Are  the  people  any  better  for  all  this  change  ?  We  think  not, 
and  we  do  not  doubt  that  the  change  itself  has  much  to  do 
with  the  habits  of  incivility  of  which  we  complain.  Men 
must  have  some  principle  of  reverence  in  them,  as  a  basis  of 
good  manners,  and  this  principle  of  reverence  in  the  modern 
American  child  has  very  little  development.  He  comes  for- 
ward early,  and  the  first  thing  he  does  in  multitudes  of  in- 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  381 

stances  is  to  lose  his  respect  for  his  parents.  Poor  men  and 
women  try  to  give  their  children  better  chances  than  they  had 
themselves,  and  the  children  grow  up  with  contempt  for  those 
whose  sacrifices  have  raised  them  to  a  higher  plane  of  culture. 
They  call  the  teacher  "  Old  Snooks,"  or  "  Old  Bumble,"  or 
whatever  his  name  may  happen  to  be.  It  is  not  unjust  to 
declare  that  there  is  in  America  to-day  no  attempt,  distinctly 
and  definitely  made,  to  cultivate  a  spirit  of  reverence  in  chil- 
dren. 

We  acknowledge  that  we  have  no  faith  in  any  attempt  to 
reform  the  manners  of  the  adult  population  of  the  country. 
Our  efforts  to  make  sober  men  out  of  drunkards,  and  total- 
abstinence  men  out  of  moderate  drinkers,  are  failures.  Our 
temperance  armies  are  to  be  made  entirely  out  of  children. 
We  can  raise  more  Christians  by  juvenile  Christian  culture, 
than  by  adult  conversion,  a  thousand  to  one.  So  it  will  be  in 
this  matter  of  National  politeness.  The  parents  and  teachers 
of  the  country  can  give  us  a  polite  people,  and  this  by  the 
cultivation  of  the  principle  of  reverence  not  only,  but  by  in- 
struction in  all  the  forms  of  polite  address.  With  a  number 
of  things  greatly  needed  to-day  in  home  culture  and  school 
study,  this  matter  of  training  in  good  manners  is  not  the  least. 
Indeed  we  are  inclined  to  think  it  is  of  paramount  importance. 
It  should  become  a  matter  of  text-books  at  once.  A  thorough 
gentleman  or  lady,  who  has  brains  enough  to  comprehend 
principles,  while  proficient  in  practice,  could  hardly  do  a  bet- 
ter service  to  the  country  than  by  preparing  a  book  for  par- 
ents and  teachers,  as  at  once  a  guide  to  them  and  to  those 
who  are  under  them.  Children  must  be  trained  to  politeness, 
or  they  will  never  be  polite.  They  must  drink  politeness  in 
with  their  mother's  milk ;  it  must  be  exacted  in  the  family  and 
neighborhood  relations ;  and  boys  and  girls  must  grow  up  gen- 


382  £  V&  K  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

tlemen  and  ladies  in  their  deportment,  or  our  nation  can 
never  be  a  thoroughly  polite  one — polite  in  soul  as  well  as  in 
ceremony,  and  kind  in  manner  as  well  as  kind  in  heart. 

WHERE  ARE  THE  YOUNG  MEN  ? 

There  are  curious  facts,  noticeable  in  the  Eastern  States,  to 
which  occasional  allusion  is  made  in  conversation  and  the  news- 
papers— facts  which  illustrate  the  scarcity  of  young  men  of  a 
certain  class.  At  every  fashionable  summer  resort,  the  small 
number  of  young  men  and  the  comparative  plentifulness  of 
young  women  are  matters  of  notoriety.  If  there  should  hap- 
pen to  be,  in  such  a  gathering  as  this,  half  a  dozen  young  men, 
of  unexceptionable  position,  to  six  times  that  number  of  young 
women  in  a  corresponding  position,  the  thirty-six  women  would 
account  themselves  peculiarly  fortunate.  In  a  hotel  "hop," 
one  will  see  half  the  girls  with  partners  of  their  own  sex.  The 
ladies  of  a  traveling  party  in  Europe  are,  as  a  rule,  in  an  over- 
whelming majority.  The  fact  that  beaux  are  scarce  in  all  public 
places,  is  one  with  which  the  young  women  of  the  Eastern 
States  are  painfully  familiar.  There  are  many  good  reasons  to 
be  offered  for  this  disproportion  of  the  sexes  in  such  places — 
the  pressure  of  work  or  of  study  upon  the  men,  at  a  period 
of  life  when  their  time  is  not  wholly  at  their  disposal,  being  the 
principal  one. 

If  it  were  only  in  the  resorts  for  summer  recreation  that 
young  men  are  scarce,  the  fact  would  not  be  noteworthy  par- 
ticularly. They  ought  to  have  something  to  do,  and  enough  to 
do  to  keep  them  from  spending  a  great  deal  of  time  in  the  pursuit 
of  pleasure.  It  is  a  startling  fact,  however,  that  the  young  men 
of  the  first  class,  or  those  regarded  as  belonging  to  the  first 
class,  are  as  scarce  in  the  towns  as  they  are  at  the  summer  ho- 
tels. The  marriageable  girls  among  Eastern  families  of  the 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 


383 


best  position  are  in  overwhelmingly  larger  numbers  than  are  the 
marriageable  young  men  in  the  same  position.  Something  of 
this  is  due  to  the  ravages  made  by  the  late  war  among  the 
ranks  of  the  young  men.  Something  more  is  due  to  the  emi- 
gration westward  of  great  numbers  of  them,  so  that,  in  some 
of  the  Western  States,  the  men  outnumber  the  women.  What- 
ever the  causes  may  be,  they  are  sufficient  to  establish  a  marked 
inequality  in  the  number  of  the  sexes  in  the  class  to  which  we 
allude.  There  are  many  social  circles,  in  every  Eastern  city  and 
considerable  town,  embracing  great  numbers  of  beautiful  and 
well-educated  young  women,  in  which  there  cannot  be  found 
a  brilliant  or  even  particularly  desirable  match  among  the  men. 
Two  or  three  hackneyed  beaux,  whose  hair  remains  black  by 
reason  of  the  barber,  and  whose  teeth  are  sound  by  reason  of 
the  dentist,  do  the  polite  for  two  or  three  generations  of  beau- 
ties, and  are  so  busy  in  the  service  that  they  forget  to  marry, 
and  so  pass  away;  while,  shrinking  into  a  thrifdess  maidenhood, 
with  hearts  unwon  and  charms  unappropriated,  the  sweet  life 
of  the  women  dries  up,  and  sinks  to  the  dust  from  which  it 
rose. 

Now  to  us  this  is  one  of  the  most  sad  and  serious  things 
connected  with  our  social  condition ;  and  it  has  a  world  to  do 
with  the  uneasiness  of  women,  manifested  in  various  ways, — the 
universal  seeking  for  something  with  which  to  fill  up  life,  and 
make  it  significant. 

But  we  have  a  practical  reason  for  calling  attention  to  this 
matter;  and  this  we  propose  to  present  in  a  statement  relating 
to  a  large  number  of  young  men,  usually  assigned  to  the  sec- 
ond class  in  society.  While  our  fine  girls  are  bemoaning  the 
lack  of  young  men,  and  the  scarcity  of  beaux  who  are  mar- 
riageable and  who  mean  marriage,  there  is  a  class  of  young 
men  whom  they  do  not  recognize  at  all,  yet  who  will  furnish  to 


384  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

the  next  generation  its  men  of  enterprise,  of  power,  of  position, 
and  of  wealth.  It  is  not  the  sons  of  the  rich  who  will,  as  a  rule, 
remain  rich.  The  sons  of  the  poor  will  get  rich;  and  there  are 
to-day,  drudging  in  offices,  and  counting-rooms,  and  store- 
houses, and  machine-shops,  and  printing  establishments,  the 
men  who,  in  twenty-five  years,  will  control  the  nation  socially, 
politically,  and  financially.  Every  man  of  them  means  to  be 
married;  they  will,  as  a  rule,  make  excellent  husbands;  they 
are  all  at  work  trying  to  win  success.  They  are  men  who 
would  be  easily  improved  by  recognition,  and  by  bringing  them 
into  good,  intelligent  society;  yet  they  are  as  little  noticed  as 
if  they  were  so  many  dogs.  Virtuous  young  men  from  the 
country  go  into  the  city,  and  live  for  years  without  any  society, 
and  are  regarded  by  the  fashionable  young  women  with  indif- 
ference or  contempt;  but  those  young  men  have  a  hold  upon 
the  future;  and  when  their  success  is  won,  in  whatever  field  of 
enterprise  it  may  be,  the  fashionable  will  be  glad  to  claim  them 
as  belonging  to  their  own  number.  We  regret  to  say  that,  as 
a  rule,  the  young  men  for  whom  a  position  has  been  won  by 
virtuous  and  enterprising  fathers  amount  to  but  little  in  the 
world;  and  we  rejoice  to  say  that  companions  chosen  from 
those  who  have  their  fortunes  to  make  and  their  position  to  win, 
are  those  to  whom  a  well-bred  woman  can  generally  with 
safety  intrust  her  happiness  and  herself. 

If  there  is  anything  in  all  these  facts,  thus  brought  into  as- 
sociation, which  points  out  a  duty  to  "our  best  society,"  and 
urges  its  performance,  even  by  selfish  motives,  it  will  be  readily 
perceived.  The  hope  of  the  country  is  in  this  second  grade 
of  young  men.  They  ought  to  have  better  social  privileges. 
What  better  capital  can  a  man  have  than  youth,  virtue,  intel- 
ligence, health,  and  enterprise?  What  better  claim  than  these 
can  any  man  present  for  admission  into  good  society?  To 


young  men  of  this  class,  now  almost  wholly  neglected,  the  so- 
ciety of  educated  and  accomplished  women  would  be  a  rare 
and  fruitful  privilege — fruitful  to  themselves,  and  quite  as  fruit- 
ful to  those  whose  courtesies  they  receive. 

THE  AMERICAN  RESTAURANT. 

The  typical  American  restaurant  is  an  establishment  quite 
as  well  individualized,  and  quite  as  characteristic,  as  anything 
of  the  kind  to  be  found  in  the  world.  The  French  cafe,  the 
German  beer-garden,  and  the  English  chop-house,  all  have 
their  characteristic  habits,  appearance,  and  manners ;  but  the 
American  restaurant  is  like  neither  of  them.  It  can  only  be 
conducted  by  an  American,  and,  we  regret  to  say,  it  can  only 
be  frequented  and  enjoyed  by  Americans  of  the  second  and 
lower  grades.  The  aim  of  the  conductor  seems  to  be  to  sell 
the  greatest  amount  of  food  in  the  shortest  possible  time — an 
aim  which  the  guests  invariably  second,  by  eating  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  We  have  seen,  in  a  Broadway  restaurant,  a  table 
surrounded  by  men,  all  eating  their  dinners  with  their  hats  on, 
while  genuine  ladies,  elegantly  dressed,  occupied  the  next 
table,  within  three  feet  of  them.  In  this  restaurant  there  was 
as  much  din  in  the  ordering  of  dishes  and  the  clash  of  plates 
and  knives  and  forks,  as  if  a  brass  band  had  been  in  full  blast. 
Every  dish  was  placed  before  the  guests  with  a  bang.  The 
noise,  the  bustle,  the  hurry,  in  such  a  place,  at  dinner  time, 
can  only  be  compared  to  that  which  occurs  when  the  animals 
are  fed  in  Barnum's  caravan.  We  do  not  exaggerate  at  all 
when  we  say  that  the  American  restaurant  is  the  worst-man- 
nered place  ever  visited  by  decent  people.  No  decent  Ameri- 
can ever  goes  into  one  when  he  can  help  it,  and  comparatively 
few  decent  people  know  how  very  indecent  it  is. 

Our  best  hotels  have  no  equals  in  the  world,  and,  in  assert  • 


386  £ VER Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

ing  this,  we  know  what  we  say,  and  "speak  by  the  card." 
Our  best  restaurants  are  mainly  kept  by  foreigners,  or,  if  not, 
are  modeled  upon  the  French  type.  Nowhere  in  the  world 
can  there  be  found  better  cooking,  more  quiet  and  leisurely 
manners,  or  better  service,  than  in  the  restaurants  of  the 
hotels  above  alluded  to,  or  the  best  class  of  eating-houses. 
These,  however,  are  direct  or  indirect  importations ;  while  the 
American  restaurant,  pure  and  proper,  serves  the  needs  of  the 
great  multitude  of  business  men — clerks,  porters,  and  upper- 
class  laborers  generally.  These  do  not  eat — they  feed.  Thou- 
sands of  them  would  regard  it  as  an  affectation  of  gentility  to 
remove  their  hats  while  feeding;  and  they  sit  down,  order 
their  dinner,  which, — pudding,  pastry,  vegetables,  and  meat, 
— is  all  placed  before  them  in  one  batch,  and  then  "pitch  in." 
The  lack  of  courtesy,  of  dignity,  of  ordinary  tokens  even  of 
self-respect,  would  be  amusing  if  it  were  not  so  humiliating. 

It  is  useless  for  the  incredulous  American  to  ask  the  ques- 
tion, "where  have  you  been?"  When  in  a  second-rate  res- 
taurant a  guest  asks  for  fish-balls  and  hears  his  order  repeated 
to  the  cook  by  the  colored  waiter  as  "sleeve-buttons  for  one  ! " 
and  hears  his  neighbor's  order  for  pork  and  beans  transformed 
into  "  stars  and  stripes,"  he  begins  to  wonder,  indeed,  whether 
"civilization"  is  not  "a  failure,"  and  whether  "the  Caucasian" 
is  not  "played  out."  The  average  American,  in  the  average 
American  restaurant,  eats  his  dinner  in  the  average  time  of  six 
minutes  and  forty-five  seconds.  He  bolts  into  the  door,  bolts 
his  dinner,  and  then  bolts  out.  There  is  no  thought  of  those 
around  him,  no  courtesy  to  a  neighbor,  no  pleasant  word  or 
motion  of  politeness  to  the  man  or  the  woman  who  receives 
his  money — nothing  but  a  fearful  taking  in  of  ammunition — 
the  feeding  of  a  devouring  furnace — and  then  a  desperate  dash 
into  the  open  air,  as  if  he  were  conscious  he  had  swallowed 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 


38? 


poison,  and  must  find  a  doctor  and  a  stomach-pump,  or  die, 
A  favorite  method  of  devouring  oysters  is  to  stand,  or  to  sit  on 
a  high  stool,  always  with  the  hat  on  ; — oysters  on  the  half-shell 
and  the  eater  under  a  half-shell.  There  may  be  something  in 
the  position  that  favors  deglutition :  we  don't  know. 

The  penalty  a  man  pays  for  getting  his  lunch  or  his  dinner 
at  a  reasonable  price  is  to  encounter  the  offensive  scenes  we 
have  described.  The  penalty  he  pays  for  eating  where  he 
finds  the  manners  of  civilization  is  an  unreasonable  price. 
"When  a  man  pays  half  a  dollar  for  a  bit  of  cold  meat,  or 
seventy-five  cents  for  a  steak,  or  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  for  a 
couple  of  boiled  eggs,  he  recalls  sorrowfully  and  wonderingly, 
— if  he  has  ever  traveled, — the  nice  little  breakfasts  he  used  to 
get  at  Madame  Dijon's  in  Paris  for  two  francs,  his  dinners  in 
the  Palais  Royal- for  three,  his  daily  board,  with  rooms,  at  the 
Pension  Picard,  in  Geneva,  for  five,  and  his  luxurious  apart- 
ments with  an  elaborate  table  d'hote  at  all  the  principal  hotels 
of  the  Continent  for  ten.  Is  there  any  necessity  for  such 
prices  as  we  are  obliged  to  pay  at  the  best  restaurants — or  any 
apology  for  them  ?  Any  man  who  keeps  house,  and  does  his 
own  marketing,  knows  the  first  cost  of  the  expensive  dishes 
placed  before  him  in  these  restaurants,  and  he  knows  there  is 
no  just  relation  between  the  cost  and  the  price  charged,  after 
all  allowance  has  been  made  for  cooking,  service,  rent,  etc. 

Sometime  or  other  there  will  be  a  change,  we  suppose. 
When  the  times  of  inflation  are  gone  by,  when  on  one  side 
men  will  content  themselves  with  reasonable  profits,  and  on 
the  other,  money  comes  harder  and  slower,  we  shall  have  a 
reform  of  prices  in  the  better  class  of  eating-houses.  Our  ex- 
pectations in  regard  to  the  second-rate  places  are  more  indefi- 
nite. It  takes  several  generations  to  train  a  people  to  ideas  of 
refinement  and  good  manners  at  the  table.  The  average  Ger- 


388  E  VER  Y  DAY  TOPICS. 

man  has  nothing  to  boast  of  yet  in  this  respect,  and  we  can 
only  hope  that  the  American,  with  his  greater  sensitiveness  and 
quicker  instincts,  will  reach  the  desired  point  before  him. 

THE  COMMON  SCHOOLS. 

It  seems  rather  late  in  our  history  as  a  nation  to  be  discuss- 
ing the  question  whether  the  State  is  transcending  its  legitimate 
functions  in  educating  its  children ;  yet,  by  the  letters  which 
we  read  in  the  newspapers,  it  appears  that  there  are  people 
who  entertain  the  question  in  its  affirmative  phase,  and  who 
declare  that  the  duty  of  education  attaches  only  to  the  parent. 
In  what  interest  these  men  write  we  do  not  know, — whether 
in  the  interest  of  their  pockets  or  their  religious  party.  It  is 
exceedingly  hard  to  give  them  credit  for  either  intelligence  or 
candor.  The  lessons  of  history  are  so  plain,  the  results  of 
universal  education  have  been  so  beneficent,  the  ignorance 
that  dwells  everywhere  where  education  has  been  left  to  the 
parent  and  the  church  is  so  patent  and  so  lamentable  in  every 
aspect  and  result,  that  it  seems  as  if  no  man  could  rationally 
and  candidly  come  to  a  conclusion  adverse  to  the  American 
policy  in  this  matter.  The  simple  fact  that  we  are  obliged  to 
pass  laws  to  keep  young  children  out  of  factories  and  bring 
them  to  the  free  schools,  shows  how  utterly  indifferent  multi- 
tudes of  parents  are  concerning  the  education  of  their  children, 
and  how  soon  the  American  nation  would  sink  back  into  the 
popular  apathy  and  ignorance  which  characterize  some  of  the 
older  peoples  of  the  world. 

A  State  is  a  great,  vital  organization,  endowed  by  the  popu- 
lar mind  with  a  reason  for  being,  and  by  the  popular  will  with 
a  policy  for  self-preservation.  This  policy  takes  in  a  great 
variety  of  details.  It  protects  commerce  by  the  establishment 
of  light-houses,  the  deepening  of  channels,  the  establishment 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS.  389 

of  storm-signals,  etc.  It  ministers  in  many  ways  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  country's  internal  resources.  It  fosters  agri- ' 
culture.  It  is  careful  of  all  its  prosperities  and  sources  of 
prosperity.  It  establishes  a  currency.  It  organizes  and  super- 
intends an  elaborate  postal  service.  It  carries  on  all  the  proc- 
esses of  a  grand  organic  life.  Our  own  nation  governs  itself, 
and  one  of  the  conditions  of  all  good  government  is  intelli- 
gence at  the  basis  of  its  policy.  An  ignorant  people  cannot, 
of  course,  govern  themselves  intelligently ;  and  the  State,  en- 
dowed with  its  instinct,  or  its  policy,  of  self-preservation,  is, 
and  ought  to  be,  more  sensitive  at  this  point  than  at  any  other. 
In  the  minds  of  the  people,  the  State  has  the  sources  of  its 
life;  and  to  those  sources,  by  unerring  instinct,  our  own  country 
has,  from  the  first,  looked  for  its  perpetuity. 

There  is  no  organization  of  life,  individual  and  simple,  or 
associated  and  complex,  in  which  the  instinct,  impulse,  or 
principle  of  self-preservation  is  not  the  predominant  one.  We 
fought  the  war  of  the  Revolution  to  establish  our  nationality, 
and  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  to  maintain  it.  We  have  spent, 
first  and  last,  incalculable  blood  and  treasure  to  establish  and 
keep  our  national  life  intact,  and  the  national  policy  with  rela- 
tion to  public  schools  is  part  and  parcel  of  that  all-subordi- 
nating determination  to  secure  the  perpetuity  of  the  State. 
Men  make  better  citizens  for  being  educated.  The  higher  the 
popular  intellect  is  raised,  the  more  intelligent  and  independent 
will  be  its  vote.  The  stronger  the  sources  of  government,  the 
stronger  the  government.  If  the  "bayonets  that  think"  are 
the  most  potent,  the  ballots  that  think  are  the  most  beneficent. 

The  question,  then,  which  has  been  raised,  touching  the 
duty  of  the  State  in  the  matter  of  popular  education,  is  a 
question  which  concerns  the  life  and  perpetuity  of  the  State, 
and  is  a  question,  not  for  a  church,  not  for  a  parent,  or  for  any 


39° 


EVERY  DA  Y  TOPICS. 


subordinate  combination  of  parents,  to  decide.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion for  the  State  to  decide, — not,  of  course,  from  any  humani- 
tarian point  of  view,  but  from  its  own  point  of  view.  To  put 
the  question  into  form,  that  question  would  read  something 
like  this:  "Can  I,  the  American  State,  afford  to  intrust  to 
heedless  or  mercenary  parents,  or  to  any  church  organization, 
which  either  makes  or  does  not  make  me  subordinate  to  itself, 
the  education  of  the  children  of  the  nation,  when  my  own  ex- 
istence and  best  prosperity  depend  upon  the  universality  and 
liberality  of  that  education  ? "  There  are  many  other  vital 
questions  which  the  State  might  ask  in  this  connection, — for 
patriotism,  as  a  sentiment,  grows  with  the  beneficence  of  the 
institutions  under  which  it  lives.  Every  victory  which  our  na- 
tion has  ever  won  has  been  a  victory  of  the  common  school. 
This  has  been  the  nursery,  not  only  of  our  patriots,  but  of  our 
soldiers.  In  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  the  universally  educated 
crossed  swords  with  the  partially  educated,  and  the  latter  went 
to  the  wall. 

This  matter  of  leaving  education  to  parents  and  to  churches 
is,  to  use  the  familiar  but  expressive  slang  of  the  street,  "played 
out."  If  the  advocates  of  this  policy  could  point  to  a  single 
well-educated  nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe,  whose  popular 
intelligence  is  the  result  of  that  policy,  they. might  have  some 
claim  to  be  heard ;  but  no  such  nation  exists.  Where  priests 
and  parents  have  had  it  all  their  own  way  for  generations  and 
centuries,  there  is  to  be  found  the  greatest  degree  of  popular 
ignorance;  and  the  men  whose  votes  most  seriously  menace 
the  health  and  permanence  of  American  institutions  and  Ameri- 
can life  are  the  very  men  we  have  imported  from  those  regions, 
They  are  the  men  whom  designing  demagogues  can  buy  and 
bribe,  and  lead  whithersoever  they  will, — men  who  cannot  read 
the  ballots  they  deposit,  and  are  as  ignorant  of  politics  as  the 
horses  they  drive,  or  the  pigs  they  feed. 


AMERICAN  LIFE  AND  MANNERS. 


39* 


We  have  not  taken  up  this  subject  because  we  consider  the 
common  schools  in  danger.  They  are  not  in  danger.  The 
State  will  never  relinquish  its  policy  in  this  matter.  The  com- 
mon school,  as  an  American  institution,  will  live  while  America 
lives.  Not  only  this,  but  the  signs  are  unmistakable  that  it  is 
to  be  more  far-reaching  in  its  efforts  and  results  than  it  ever 
has  been.  Popular  education  is  one  of  the  primary  functions 
of  the  State's  life.  No  democratic  government  can  long  exist 
without  it,  and  our  best  people  are  thoroughly  confirmed  in 
this  conviction.  We  have  taken  up  the  subject  simply  to  show 
that  the  State  cannot  "go  back  on"  its  record  without  the 
surrender  of  the  policy  which  grows  out  of  the  instinct  of  all 
living  organizations  for  self-protection  and  self-preservation. 
To  surrender  this  policy  would  be,  not  only  foolish,  but  crimi- 
nal ;  and  there  is  not  one  American  institution  that  American 
people  wculd  sooner  fight  for  and  die  for,  than  that  which 
secures  ar.  educated  and  intelligent  nationality. 


THE   END. 


SEVENOAKS. 


A.     STORY     OB1 

BY  J.   G.   HOLLAND, 

Author   of  "ARTHUR    BONNICASTLE,"   "THE    MISTRESS    OF   THE    MANSE,"   "  KATHRINA,* 
"  BITTER  SWEET,"  "TITCOMB'S  LETTERS,"  etc. 


With     a    full-page    illustrations,  after  original    designs   by  Sol.   Eytinge.      One   volume, 
I2mo.    Cloth,    $1.75. 


Dr.  Holland  in  his  latest  novel,  "  The  Story  of  Sevenoaks,"  has  undertaken 
to  present  some  typical  American  characters,  and  especially  to  throw  light 
upon  a  phase  of  New  York  life,  the  outside  of  which,  at  least,  is  familiar  to 
every  reader.  But  it  is  not  merely  because  the  characters  and  scenes  and  inci- 
dents are  thoroughly  modern  and  familiar  that  the  story  has  won  so  much 
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